Montour bows out to Bishop McDevitt in PIAA semifinal
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Montour coach Lou Cerro consoles Devin Wilson after losing to Bishop McDevitt in a PIAA Class AAA semifinal Friday night at Mansion Park Stadium in Altoona.
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ALTOONA -- Bishop McDevitt scored 27 consecutive points in the second and third quarters and outlasted Montour, 41-32, in the PIAA semifinals Friday at Mansion Park Stadium.
Montour's Dillon Buechel passed for 324 yards and Darren Massey set a PIAA Class AAA record with 200 receiving yards, but the District 3 champion Crusaders of Harrisburg held the Spartans offense in check in the second half, limiting them to a fourth-quarter touchdown.
"We had no flow there in the second half," Montour coach Lou Cerro said. "We didn't have the ball for a long time, or anything like that. They put us in that position."
Bishop McDevitt held Spartans running back Julian Durden to zero second-half rushing yards after he rushed for 99 in the first half.
"We just tackled," Bishop McDevitt coach Jeff Waechter said. "In the first half we had guys there but he was just spinning off of us."
The Crusaders came out of halftime trailing, 26-20, and scored three consecutive touchdowns to take control of the game.
First, Alec Werner found Andre Robinson on a 10-yard screen pass for a score. Werner finished 17-of-25 passing for 216 yards and three touchdowns.
Darnell Holland added two rushing touchdowns of 3 and 5 yards to put the Crusaders up, 41-26, after three quarters.
Montour had a chance to make a comeback late, but trailing by nine with 7:23 left, Devin Wilson dropped a pass on fourth-and-3 that would have been a first down. Wilson had 10 catches in the game for 101 yards.
Buechel also threw three second-half interceptions that cut Montour drives short.
"Dillon's a big-time player," Cerro said. "Hat's off to him."
The game looked as if it would be an offensive shootout early. Both teams traded punches offensively in the first half, combining for just one punt in the first 24 minutes.
The Spartans opened the scoring on their first drive. On second-and-10 from the Bishop McDevitt 30, Buechel completed a screen pass to Durden to the 15. Durden fumbled, and the ball squirted forward to the 5, where Aaron Reed scooped it up and ran it in for a touchdown that put the Spartans up, 6-0.
Montour had a chance to extend its lead on the next possession when Matthew Christiansen recovered a fumble at the Crusaders 9, but the Spartans went three-and-out on the ensuing drive.
The Crusaders later took over with good field position, and on the first play of their possession, answered with a 36-yard touchdown pass from Werner to Brian Lemelle to take a 7-6 lead.
The Spartans scored on their next three possessions of the first half, using a combination of screens, quick passes and draws to neutralize Bishop McDevitt's defensive line. Durden had first-half scoring runs of 25 and 16 yards, and Buechel completed two touchdown passes, one to Wilson and the other to Massey. Buechel finished the first half 12 of 14 for 217 yards.
"After the first series, we thought we needed a lot of shorter passes, keep them on their heels a little bit," Cerro said.
Bishop McDevitt's star defensive end Noah Spence still got plenty of pressure on Buechel. He only registered one sack, but hit Buechel plenty of times right after he released the ball.
"Dillon got killed tonight," Cerro said. "Some of the hits he took, I don't know a lot of guys could get up from."
Bishop McDevitt's offense kept pace in the first half, though. The Crusaders had one drive stall at the Montour 25 on a failed fourth-down conversion, but Werner and Lemelle hooked up again at the beginning of the second quarter for a 34-yard score. Robinson added a 5-yard touchdown run with 34 seconds left in the half to send Bishop McDevitt into halftime trailing, 26-20.
First Published December 10, 2011 12:00 am
