Belle Vernon rides defense to victory
EBENSBURG – Quinton Martin only had 21 yards from scrimmage in Belle Vernon’s PIAA Class 3A semifinal football game on Friday night, but his 18-yard run in the waning minutes was one of the biggest plays.
It let the Leopards run out the clock to tie the bow on the team effort that allowed Belle Vernon to emerge from its dogfight with Central of Martinsburg with a 21-17 comeback victory on Friday night at Central Cambria Stadium, sending the team to its first-ever PIAA final.
“It’s crazy. I can’t believe it’s my senior year and we’re going to play for the state championship. It’s surreal,” Leopards senior captain Steve Macheska said. “We brought way more juice (in the second half). We got more rushes and we were able to make plays.”
Braden Laux rushed for a game- high 131 yards for Belle Vernon (11-2), scoring what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown on a 3-yard plunge with 2:52 left in the third quarter after he broke free on a 58-yard jaunt to set it up.
However, it was the Leopards’ defense that came up biggest in the landmark win, coming up with two turnovers deep in its own territory in the second half in addition to stopping the Scarlet Dragons twice on downs in the last 5:24 – Colton Lee’s defense on Central running back Hunter Smith to force an incomplete pass at the Belle Vernon 1 on fourthand-7 with about a minute to play iced the game.
“The defense did their job twice. The defense did their job once and the offense was supposed to close it out and we didn’t close it out,” Belle Vernon coach Matt Humbert said.
Humbert joked with his players in the postgame huddle that he took five years off their life. Central came back from a quick 14-0 deficit to take a 17-14 halftime lead, then took the second half kickoff and drove inside the Leopards’ 35 when the ball got punched away from scrambling Scarlet Dragon quarterback Jeff Hoenstine and was recovered by Belle Vernon senior Chase Ruokonen.
Later, Ruokonen stole the ball from Central’s Rylan Daugherty on what looked like it was going to be a completion to the Leopards’ 18 and returned it 31 yards.
“It was a good play by both of us. I just ripped it out,” Ruokonen said.
With Central keying on Martin, Laux was able to step up. He had a 42-yard touchdown run in the first quarter and ran for 85 yards in the second half, including the big 58-yarder.
“The defensive end went down. I made my read to my running back, faked him out and just kept going,” Laux said.
Central (12-3) had scored at least 35 points in 11 consecutive games coming in. Hoenstine – the state recordholder for touchdown passes in a season – threw for 224 yards, completing 19 of 39 throws.
“We were as good as we could be,” Central coach Dave Baker said. “They made some big plays when it was necessary for them, and that’s what did it.”
It looked like the Leopards were already warming up the buses for a trip to next week’s state final when they jumped out to a 14-0 lead by the 7:29 mark of the first quarter without even putting the ball into Martin’s hands. The game began with Anthony Crews snaring Smith’s opening kickoff on the fly at his own 32, getting through the first wave of the Scarlet Dragons’ coverage untouched and racing to the end zone with just 10 seconds expiring.
Aiden Johnson’s 17-yard sack of Hoenstine helped Belle Vernon get excellent field position at its own 42 on the Leopards’ next possession. Five plays later, Laux faked the give to Jake Gedekoh and kept it himself around left end, running 42 yards for the score.