Woog rolls past Allhntown Catholif into stath final
For BucksLocalSports While most of the players on the field were certainly different, the result was pretty much the same.
Archbishop Wood no longer had its Division 1-ridden team on the field and Allentown Central Catholic no longer had the PA Gatorade Player of the Year running its offense, but none of that mattered.
Andrew Guckin and gosh Messina replaced Desmon and Brandon Peoples in the backfield. Freshman Tom Garlick replaced goey Monaghan at quarterback and Wood replaced last year’s 70-14 win over Central Catholic with yet another dominating performance, winning 36-6 in a PfAA Class AAA semifinal last Friday night at Bethlehem Liberty’s Frank Banko Field.
One season after losing nearly every starter from its state championship-winning team – maybe the best team the state has seen in decades – Wood had no problem in making sure it would be able to defend its title after maybe its best half of the season.
“Everybody doubted us, but we knew we were good enough,” said Garlick, who stepped in as Wood’s starting QB in Week three. “We knew that if we put everything we had in it, we’d get a lot out of it. And our seniors are phenomenal and if we didn’t have them, this team isn’t where it is right now.”
Almost everybody for Wood (12-2F, the District 12 (City LeagueF champion, got in on the scoring in the first half.
Messina opened up the scoring with a 55-yard touchdown run in the first. Guckin followed with a 10yard score of his own and garrett McClenton scored on a 55-yard run on Wood’s third drive of the game. Up 20-0, Wood switched to the passing game, as Garlick completed 53 and sevenyard passes to Chris Rahill and Messina, respectively, to put Wood up 33-0 late in the first half.
After Guckin intercepted a Central Catholic Pass and returned to the ball to its nine-yard line, Wood kicker
kick sisco nailed a 26-yard field goal to give his team a 36-0 lead and put the mercy rule into effect for the entire second half.
“We came out with an edge tonight,” Wood coach Steve Devlin said. “We kept hearing that it was another week for (Central Catholic), but we aren’t an ordinary team. We wanted to come out and make a statement.”
And make a statement they did.
Wood racked up 379 total yards of offense to only 120 for Central Catholic in a first half which saw each team run 29 plays. And despite having a freshman quarterback leading the way, Wood’s offense looked as solid in the first half as it did last year – a season in which the sikings outscored their opponents by nearly 500 points.
“It’s a tremendous job on Tom’s part to what needed to be done,” Devlin said of his quarterback. “We put him in good situations to succeed. I don’t know how many freshmen nBs started a state championship game, but it’s a neat accomplishment.”
darlick threw the ball only seven times, completing four passes for 83 yards and two touchdowns.
“It was great to win this,” he said. “We’ve been wanting this all year and this was our goal. We want to have a good week of practice and come out ready to play.”
While darlick did his job behind center, the running back tandem of duckin, Messina and McClenton did more than enough in the first half. duckin ran 10 times for 140 yards and a score, while Messina added eight carries for 101 yards and one touchdown. McClenton’s 55-yard touchdown was his only run of the night. Messina also caught two passes for 20 yards and a score, while Rahill caught two passes for 63 yards and his one touchdown.
Wood, which has now played in five consecutive state semifinal games, has outscored Central Catholic 106-20 in the last two meetings after losing in the semi- finals in 2010. kext Friday (7 p.m.), Wood will look to defend its state title when it travels to Hershey to face brie Cathedral Prep, which defeated Bishop McDevitt on Friday night in the other Class AAA semifinal.
“bric Prep is a great program and always has been,” Devlin said. “We made it through last year, but this is a different year and we’ll worry about them next week.”
The trip to Hershey will be Wood’s third in the last five years.
darlick, who never could’ve imagined being where he is in only his first year in high school, said after the game that he didn’t feel like he had just joined the football team this season.
“Tonight…Right now, I don’t like feel like a freshman,” he said. “kot at all.”
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