A steady rain was falling at Three Rivers Stadium last night, and things appeared gloomy for West Allegheny. Then, the son started to shine.
Tyler Palko, son of West Allegheny Coach Bob Palko, threw for three touchdowns and 136 yards in leading the Indians to a 21-7 victory against upstart West Mifflin in the WPIAL Class AAA championship game.
West Allegheny doesn't throw the ball much, but Tyler Palko is very effective when he does. He completed all six passes and directed an offense that collected 288 yards and was brutally efficient in the second half.
The Indians had three possessions in the second half. They drove 60 yards in eight plays for a touchdown on the first, then went 80 yards in 12 plays on the second for the touchdown that secured the victory. They got the ball again with 2:24 left and never gave it back to West Mifflin.
It was West Allegheny's second consecutive WPIAL Class AAA crown and third in the past four years. West Allegheny is 12-1 and will meet District 10 champion Wilmington, a 35-0 winner against Bradford yesterday, in a PIAA semifinal. That game will be played Friday or Saturday with the winner advancing to the PIAA final Dec. 8 at Hersheypark Stadium. West Allegheny made that trip last year before losing to Strath Haven.
West Mifflin ended its season 11-2 after losing to West Allegheny for the second time this year. West Allegheny won the regular-season meeting, 31-7.
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West Allegheny players celebrate after their 21-7 victory against West Mifflin yesterday in the Class AAA title game at Three Rivers Stadium. It's the Indians' second consecutive WPIAL title and their third in the past four seasons. (John Beale, Post-Gazette) |
West Mifflin's problem was it just never had the ball the second half. The Titans ran just 18 plays the last two quarters and never got any closer to the end zone than West Allegheny's 45.
"That's our game ... smashmouth football," Tyler Palko said. "Every quarterback would like to throw the ball more, but our running game is our bread and butter. Like they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it, and our running game isn't broke."
That's true, but West Allegheny didn't do anything against West Mifflin until he started to pass.
Trailing, 7-0, with 2:50 left in the first half, the Indians went to the air. Palko and Joe Slappy hooked up on a 63-yard pass, catch and run that carried to West Mifflin's 17. Two plays later, Palko gunned a pass to Chris Leonard on a slant-in pattern from 13 yards out for a touchdown with 27 seconds left in the half. Derek Javarone's extra point tied the score.
"My hat's off to West Mifflin. They came out in the first half and outplayed us. We were lucky to score to be quite honest," Bob Palko said. "When you think about it, we didn't have the ball much the first half.
"If you want to win a WPIAL championship, you've got to come out and play two halves of football, and that's what we did. We didn't yell at them much or anything at the half. We just made some adjustments."
The score at the end of the half gave West Allegheny a spark going into the locker room.
"We run the ball, that's no secret," Bob Palko said. "But we can throw the ball. What's this thing about you have to throw the ball X number of times and run it X number of times?
"The score at the end of the first half was huge. We went in tied, 7-7, instead of down seven, and the kids realized they had to come out and match West Mifflin's enthusiasm."
West Allegheny did exactly that at the start of the third quarter. The Indians took the second-half kick and scored at 7:21 on a 30-yard pass from Tyler Palko to Slappy. West Mifflin's Mark Bonacci tried to knock the ball down and just missed, and Slappy avoided another defender for the score.
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Brian Burke of West Mifflin finds no running room against West Allegheny. (John Beale, Post-Gazette) |
West Allegheny got the ball back at 11:08 of the fourth quarter and again chewed up yardage and the clock. The Indians shortened the game by taking almost their full 25 seconds between each play.
"They pound you and pound you, and when they feel they can't run it, they go to that phase of the game," West Mifflin Coach Ray Braszo said of West Allegheny's passing game. "That's what they've done the past two years."
Palko threw an 18-yard pass to Slappy in the left corner of the end zone for the touchdown with 3:57 remaining. The game wasn't over at that point, but it might as well have been.
Things were going so well for West Allegheny that it didn't matter if Palko turned the wrong way on the play fake. He was supposed to fake to running back Kellen Campbell going over the left side. Instead, he turned to his right.
"He says that he didn't," Campbell said. "He can think what he wants, but myself and the fullback were both on the left side, and he wasn't there."
Bob Palko said winning a WPIAL title never gets old. But this victory had a different feel to it.
"We did a great job of not panicking," Tyler Palko said. "You're going to have bad quarters, you're going to have bad halves, and you're going to have bad games. But the mark of a championship team is making up for those mistakes and coming out and play."
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