MECHANICSBURG, PA — He was filled with doubts that would not go away. He was filled with questions that haunted him. Why do this, he would ask himself?
A few years ago, Taurean Consiglio felt empty. His passion for football, a sport he had played since he was a little kid, was gone. So, upon entering his freshman year at Bishop Guilfoyle Academy, he decided to quit playing. Leave it. Focus on basketball.
With a smile beaming from one end of Cumberland Valley High School’s Chapman Field to the other, Consiglio was happy he found football again. He had plenty of reasons, too, after scoring four touchdowns and rushing for 160 yards in leading Bishop Guilfoyle to a 41-22 victory over Port Allegany to win the Marauders’ fifth PIAA Class 1A state championship on Friday.
Bishop Guilfoyle ended its season with a 15-1 record, while the loss was the first for Allegany (14-1).
“I didn’t really have love for football after eighth grade,” Consiglio admitted. “People told me to just play and have fun. My friends were playing, and that really convinced me to come back. I lost my passion for it. I saw my friends having success and I decided to come back. I’m happy I did. Look where I am? I like basketball, but I can see either basketball or football in my future.”
Many college scouts would be interested in Consiglio, especially by the way he busted tackles, and ran for touchdowns of 12, 6, 26 and 15 yards. He had some help in front of him in left tackle Joseph Eckenrode, left guard Rocco Cacciotti, center Trenton Murphy, right guard Hayden Hosgood, right tackle Declan Peterson and tight end Nicholas McCloskey.
“We knew Taurean would be special, and he missed playing with his friends, so that’s why he came back,” Guilfoyle coach Justin Wheeler said. “We thought coming into the season we had two stars on our offensive line, Joe Eckenrode and Connor McElheny. Connor tore his ACL the third, fourth week of the year. Connor was our strongest kid, and Cacciotti came in and started. They evolved.
“Today, they played the best they have had the whole season. This is special. This is our fifth state title made more special with my son (freshman Justin Wheeler) being on the team and my nephews (Chase and Jake Kissell). What these kids did today will stay with them forever. They just made a lifetime of memories.”
The Guilfoyle offensive front created gaping holes that eventually wore down Allegany to take control of the game in the latter stages of the third quarter.
The Marauders also had to find a way to stop Aiden Bliss. The Allegany junior fullback was everything advertised—and then some. He finished with a game-high 249 yards rushing on 47 carries and three touchdowns—against a 10-man front designed solely to stop him.
At times, the bullish Bliss proved to be unstoppable. He entered the game with 3,174 yards rushing as one of the nation’s leading rushers and finished his junior year with 3,423 yards rushing and 56 touchdowns this season.
It did not matter that Guilfoyle knew what the Gators were doing. The Marauders could not stop Bliss and the Allegany offense. After a slow start, Bliss had 102 yards rushing by halftime on 20 carries, averaging 5.1 yards a carry.
“We came out with every intention to win this game,” Bliss said. “We had a lot of faith in our guys. We weren’t going to change anything coming into this game. Our idea was to stick with what got us this far. It got us a big win against Fort Cherry. We decided to stick with it.
“They adjusted. They had a ton of guys on the line and ran different blitzes. They gave us a little too much and we couldn’t handle it. Usually, this year, when teams brought all their guys up like that, we were able to break through that first level and score. Credit to them. They were fast enough to track guys down and fast enough to get off blocks, and make tackles at the line of scrimmage.”
The 41-22 final score was somewhat deceiving.
This game was close.
With 4:32 left in the third quarter, after Bliss’ second touchdown, the score was knotted at 14-14.
Then, Guilfoyle scored 27 unanswered points on four consecutive drives, two were Consiglio scores, two came from Hamilton Gates, one on a 65-yard, third-quarter run to go up for good, and the other a Gates-to-Braden Reilly 27-yard option TD pass.
Guilfoyle went into halftime holding a 14-8 lead, thanks to a pair of Consiglio touchdowns.
With 7:06 left in the half, Consiglio scored his second TD of the game, running left behind Eckenrode, Cacciotti and Murphy, for a 14-0 lead.
The score seemed to wake up Bliss and the Allegany offense, which had been stagnant to that point, with Guilfoyle outgaining Allegany by almost 100 yards, 116-25.
Bliss introduced himself to the Marauders’ defense. He took 11-straight carries gaining every bit of the 70 yards the Gators traveled. A three-yard Bliss plunge with 1:26 left in the half, followed by a Bliss two-point conversion pulled the Gators within a score at halftime. There was nothing imaginative about it. It was Bliss running left. Bliss running right. Bliss running up the middle.
Guilfoyle’s first score came courtesy of its defense, stuffing Bliss, who was running out of the wildcat, on a fourth-and-two at Allegany’s 45. From there, the Marauders needed just five plays to go up, 7-0, on a Consiglio 12-yard run with 2:07 left in the first quarter.
Initially, the Marauders’ defense did a good job slowing down Bliss and the Allegany offense to one first down, and 25 yards of total offense on 12 plays, which averaged out to 2.08 yards a play in the first quarter. Bliss had 32 yards on nine carries in the opening quarter, attracting attention everywhere he went.
“No excuses, Bishop Guilfoyle was the better team today, but I would go to play with our team any day of the week,” Gators’ coach Justin Bienkowski said. “We have a lot of pride in our kids up front, but I am deeply disappointed that we did bring our best today. I’m deeply disappointed in that because we can’t get next week, or get next time we see them. That’s it. It’s life lessons. You have to show up every time, or else things will not go your way.
“These conditions were perfect for our style of play, but Bishop Guilfoyle made it a point to do just a little bit better in the trenches than we did today. They deserve the title.”
Scoring Summary
(District 6) Bishop Guilfoyle Academy (15-1) 7 7 14 13-41
(District 9) Port Allegany (14-1) 0 8 6 8-22
1st Quarter
BGA – Taurean Consiglio 12 run (Michael Cacciotti kick), 2:07
2nd Quarter
BGA – Consiglio 6 run (Carter Boland kick), 7:06
PA – Aiden Bliss 3 run (Bliss run), 1:26
3rd Quarter
PA – Bliss 2 run (run failed), 4:32
BGA – Hamilton Gates 65 run (Cacciotti kick), 3:29
BGA – Consiglio 26 run (Boland kick), :09
4th Quarter
BGA – Braden Reilly 27 pass from Gates (kick failed), 10:10
BGA – Consiglio 15 run (Boland kick), 4:01
PA – Bliss 19 run (Bliss run), :36
FULL GAME STATS
BGA/PA
FIRST DOWNS 16/14
RUSHES-YARDS (NET) 29-302/53-261
PASSING YDS (NET) 49/0
Passes Cmp-Att-Int 5-7-0/0-3-1
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS 36-351/56-261
Fumble Returns-Yards 0-0/0-0
Punt Returns-Yards 2-24/0-0
Kickoff Returns-Yards 4-50/6-90
Interception Returns-Yards 1-24/0-0
Punts (Number-Avg) 2-20.5/2-43.5
Fumbles-Lost 0-0/1-1
Penalties-Yards 1-5/3-20
Possession Time 19:37/28:23
Third-Down Conversions 1 of 4/8 of 14
Fourth-Down Conversions 1 of 1/1 of 3
Red-Zone Scores-Chances 3-3/3-3
Joseph Santoliquito is a hall-of-fame, award-winning sportswriter who has been covering high school football since 1992 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter @JSantoliquito [twitter.com]. Follow EasternPAFootball.com on Twitter @EPAFootball [twitter.com].
