Bishop Guilfoyle reaches PIAA single A title summit

“This was a mountain nobody thought we could climb. But we did, we won it all. Beat the odds.” That was Marauder head coach Justin Wheelers immediate thought after his team just did what most people across the state felt was impossible. They held the states number one scoring offense, the second highest scoring offense in the nation, to just 18 points. One point less than the Marauders had. Final score: Bishop Guilfoyle 19 – Clairton 18. This was a battle that went to the wire, the speed of Clairton versus the power of Bishop Guilfoyle.

With only 56 seconds remaining in the game, the Bears found themselves in a spot they haven’t been in all season: needing a score to win the game in regulation. On fourth and goal from the six, Bear quarterback Ryan Williams scrambled under pressure at the 10, looked left and heaved a prayer to the left corner of the end zone. James Hines made a spectacular leaping catch but landed just out of bounds with the ball and with that, the Marauders took possession with only 47 seconds left in the game and a one point lead.

“My boys, they just did what they do – play football,” said Wheeler. They played right from the first whistle. Clairton won the toss and elected to put the offense that scored 940 points this year. For the first time all year, the Bears were forced to punt on their first possession of the game. Both teams battled the entire first quarter to a 0-0 tie. To close the first quarter the Marauders were hit with a big personal foul penalty that gave Clairton their best field position at the 30 yard line of BG. Two plays later Williams hit a leaping Aaron Mathews in the back of the end zone and the 1,000 + yard receiver hauled in the pass for the first score of the game. The Bears attempted a 2 point conversion but it failed.

On the ensuing kick disaster nearly struck as the BG kick returner touched the ball as is was going out of bounds. Instead of the 35 the Marauders were on the 10. A penalty moved them to the 5. “We knew we just had to play our game and not panic so that’s what we did,” said BG receiver Sam Keating. Keating made a key first down reception to keep the drive going. Brandon Chadbourn saw his TE Matt Gormley beating the defender down the middle of the field and launched a nearly caught rocket. No matter as the defender knew he was beat and held onto the big TE drawing a penalty that put the ball on the Bear 34. “He does great things and he’s a lot faster than everyone thinks,” said Chadbourn of the rumbling tight end. Two plays later Chadbourn would find Sam McCloskey all alone to the left side and the little speedster did the rest, going 23 yards to tie the game. A fumbled snap kept the score tied at 6 with 7:06 remaining in the half.

Clairton shot right back, but not until after they put themselves in bad position on a holding penalty. Williams scrambled under heavy pressure but escaped long enough to find Lamont Wade streaking down the left sideline. He launched a pass that was nearly picked off by Brandon Chadbourn but miraculously went through TWO defenders, landed in Wade’s hands and he was off to the races. A 61 yard td pass to give Clairton the lead. “Man, we could have folded right there but we didn’t. We knew we could make the plays we needed. We couldn’t get down,” said Chadbourn. Another failed p.a.t. kept the score 12-6 with 6:08 in the second.

D.J. Kitt stepped up for the Marauders next. “He’s a little bowling ball but he can move those little legs when he needs to,” said McCloskey. Chadbourn sold the screen pass perfectly and Kitt did the rest rumbling 47 yards to the Clairton 15. Chadbourn did the rest running 13 yards for the score. “He played a great game for us like he always does,” said McCloskey. Chadbourn had 66 key yards on 22 carries. Josh Trybus kicked what proved to be THE most important point of the game to give the lead to BG 13-12 with 3:44 to go in the half.

Clairton drove right down the field and was looking to score but last week’s hero Aaron Yasulitis jumped in front of a Williams pass in the end zone to halt the Bear drive.

“At halftime we were like, hey! We got this! They ain’t so bad,” as Matt Gormley. The Marauders came out in the second half and played stellar defense. After holding Wade to just 72 yards rushing in the first half they knew they couldn’t give up the big play. “I thought we did a good job containing him in the first half,” said DT Andrew Berger. “So we came out in the second half and for the most part except for one or two big runs we did that.”

Facing fourth and 1/2 yard at their own 29, coach Wheeler made a huge gamble. “That was a play we practiced this week, it’s a running rugby punt where I’m supposed to kick it if there’s nothing or run if it’s open,” said Evan Chadbourn. He took option B and ran to the 26. McCloskey finished the drive on a 12 yard run and again the snap on the point after was dropped,but BG held a 19-12 lead, but there was still a whole quarter to play.

With 10:29 to play in the game, Wade finally broke loose on an amazing 64 yard td run. It appeared that, on third effort, Harrison Dreher barely got the ball across the goal on the 2 point play but the ref said the play was called dead before that happened. Clairton still trailed by one.

Both teams exchanged possessions and, with 4:04 let in the game Clairton got one last try. Starting from the 46 after Jyleel Hall intercepted a Chadbourn screen pass attempt, the Bears drove to the Marauder 6 on 4th down but the Marauders held on for the win.