MECHANICSBURG, PA — Mason Smith’s eyes widened. His father’s eyes widened, Troy head coach Jim Smith, up in the coaches booth. The whole Troy sideline’s eyes widened as defenders were converging on Mason Smith on a second-and-six option pass with 75 precious seconds hanging on the clock.
Somehow, with his head on a swivel, Mason weaved his way through the Central Clarion defense for a 16-yard touchdown and into history Friday afternoon at Cumberland Valley High School’s Chapman Field, providing the game-winning score in Troy’s dramatic 25-24 victory to win its first PIAA Class 2A state championship.
The victory capped the greatest season in Troy history, finishing 16-0, while the loss once again prevented a District 9 champion, Central Clarion, from winning a state title.
People in Troy will remember Mason’s run for decades when he went off-script and made something special from what looked like mud.
“It was a designed toss pass because they were really trying to eat up that toss,” Mason said. “Central Clarion had it locked down, so I saw a wide opening on the other side of the field, I cut it back and tried my best to get it in the end zone.
“As soon as I saw they had it locked up, I had to make something happen. Earlier, I kicked myself over slipping on a jet. We’ve been talking about winning the state championship for years. We knew we could do it. It’s a surreal feeling.”
For the last nine years, Troy, and every other Class 2A team in District 4, did not have a roadblock to hurdle, those teams had a mountain to conquer each year in perennial powerhouse Southern Columbia, which, because of Troy, did not reach the PIAA Class 2A state finals since 2014.
Troy toppled the seven-time defending state champions in the District 4 semifinals.
“We thought we had Central Clarion set up with the toss, and we run Mason to run that play, because he’s a tremendous athlete, and the play was not there and he adlibbed. I was like, first, ‘Uh oh, oh no,’ and then you can see the play developing upstairs. He busted it out.
“This is a historic team, but I have been telling people the whole time that for us to have a shot at this, we had to beat Southern. Leading up to this game, they were the best team we played. They would have been in this game if we did not beat them. We probably played our best game all year against them. But they are a legendary program that is in our district and maybe in the county. They upped the level of play in our district.”
It certainly prepared the Trojans to face a team like Central Clarion, and its special quarterback, Jase Ferguson, who entering the game completed 199 of 284 passes for 3,293 yards and 49 touchdowns against eight interceptions.
The Trojans did not get a full dose of Ferguson in the first half. They did in the second. Ferguson finished the game completing 17 of 24 passes for 189 yards and three-straight scoring drives that gave the Wildcats a 24-18 lead with 6:37 to play.
That’s when Troy responded with its game-winning 12-play, 78-yard drive. As the Trojans methodically moved into the red zone, they seemed stumped on the second-and-six from the Wildcats’ 16.
It’s when Mason Smith’s improvisation saved the game and won the Trojans the state title.
“We felt like we were going to score every time we had the ball in the second half,” Central Clarion coach Dave Eggleton said. “We knew it would a toss pass there in the end, and I thought we got too passive on it, when (Mason Smith) made a great play, cutting back across against the grain. Credit to the kid. He made a great play.”
Central Clarion had a chance to win it. On the ensuing kickoff after the Mason Smith score, Ferguson brought the Wildcats to the Troy 46 with a 35-yard kick return. The Wildcats looked cooked, when Ferguson bailed them again, hitting Mason Burford on a fourth-and-13 at the Troy 33 with 14 seconds left. A pair of Ferguson incompletions ground the clock down to :03, when Eggleton decided to let kicker Thomas Uckert attempt a 50-yard game-winning field goal into the wind.
It missed.
“I would let Uckert do it again,” Eggleton said. “This season was special and these kids deserve to be proud of the season that they had. This is a special group of young men. It was a tough wind to kick into, but I have all the confidence in the world in Uckert. I thought it was our best choice. We couldn’t overcome the slow start.”
Troy took a 12-3 lead into halftime, recovering quickly from a big opening blunder. The Trojans fumbled away the opening kickoff, and Ferguson was there to recover it at the Troy 20.
From there, the Wildcats could not move the ball. A holding penalty negated an Ethan Rex 15-yard touchdown run, forcing the Wildcats into a 36-yard
Uckert field goal.
Troy responded by scoring on consecutive possessions, helped by the Trojans’ Jack Burbage.
On the Trojans’ second possession, they traveled 77 yards over 15 plays, ending in the first of junior tailback Brendan Gilliland’s two first-half touchdowns. On the ensuing kickoff, Burbage pounced on a fumble at the Central Clarion 35 late in the first quarter.
Troy drove deep into Central Clarion territory again. Just when it looked like the Wildcats would get out of their fix, Trojans’ quarterback Evan Woodward found a wide-open Gilliland near the goal line for a 20-yard touchdown pass.
Throughout the first half, Troy dared the Wildcats to throw deep, showing no safety coverage. The times that Ferguson did drop back, he hardly had any time to pass, with the Trojans throwing six and sometimes seven defenders at him.
Offensively, Troy’s offensive line did a great job of reaching the second level against a vastly larger defensive front.
By halftime, Troy had amassed 141 yards of total offense and 10 first downs to Central Clarion’s 59 yards of offense and three first downs.
Troy had held Ferguson to a mere four-for-eight passing for just 18 yards. Central Clarion changed that by shortening its pass routes and having Ferguson take shorter drops.
“They played up man to man and we wanted to get our guys the ball in space, and in the second half, it worked,” Eggleton said. “We should have probably gone to it sooner, but we only had the ball three times in the first half. Whenever you get so close to something you worked so hard for the offseason, it’s tough to notice all the good things you did. We did a lot of good things this season.”
Scoring Summary
(District 4) Troy (16-0) 6 6 0 13-25
(District 9) Central Clarion (14-1) 3 0 13 8-24
1st Quarter
CC – Thomas Uckert 36 FG, 9:46
T – Brendan Gilliland 4 run (kick failed), 2:30
2nd Quarter
T – Gilliland 20 pass from Evan Woodward (pass failed), 10:20
3rd Quarter
CC – Ethan Rex 18 pass from Jace Ferguson (kick failed), 7:11
CC – Rex 48 pass from Ferguson (Uckert kick), 4:08
4th Quarter
T – Gilliland 28 run (run failed), 8:46
CC – Ferguson 11 run (Kohen Kemmer from Ferguson), 6:37
T – Mason Smith 16 run (Gavin Lykon-Leffler kick). 1:15
FULL GAME STATS
T/CC
FIRST DOWNS 18/15
RUSHES-YARDS (NET) 43-201/46-168
PASSING YDS (NET) 162/28
Passes Cmp-Att-Int 13-21-0/1-6-3
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS 64-363/52-196
Fumble Returns-Yards 1-14/0-0
Punt Returns-Yards 1-6/0-0
Kickoff Returns-Yards 2-20/6-80
Interception Returns-Yards 3-60/0-0
Punts (Number-Avg) 3-33.0/4-42.8
Fumbles-Lost 4-2/1-1
Penalties-Yards 6-6/3-44
Possession Time 27:55/20:05
Third-Down Conversions 6 of 13/3 of 9
Fourth-Down Conversions 2 of 3/0 of 1
Red-Zone Scores-Chances 5-5/1-2
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].
