FARRELL, Pa. – For three quarters Friday night, Redbank Valley looked like it might make a second trip to the PIAA Class 1A title game in three years.
But WPIAL champion Fort Cherry imposed its will on the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter outscoring them by 13 points on its way to a 33-23 win at Farrel High School.
“I wasn’t worried,” Fort Cherry head coach Tanner Garry said. “We knew that was a good football team. At some point, we just had to try to impose our will.”
The Rangers (15-0) were able to do that thanks to the legs of sensational sophomore quarterback Matt Sieg, who rushed for over half of his 247 yards (128) in the fourth quarter while scoring three fourth-quarter touchdowns.
“He is a special player,” Redbank Valley head coach Blane Gold said. “We’re going to be watching him play on Saturdays.
“I thought for about three and a half quarters, we did the best possible job to contain him. He was getting his yardage, but we were getting stops and forcing punts. It just got away from us a little bit at the end. It wasn’t because of the effort. It was a tremendous effort on those guys to contain him that long. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter when he was reeling off those long runs. I wouldn’t change anything about the game plan. He just beat us offensively.”
Sieg’s fourth-quarter dominance helped Fort Cherry overcome a 16-13 deficit heading into the fourth quarter while also helping the Rangers run for 167 yards in the quarter and 339 yards in the game.
Sieg, who finished the night with 247 yards rushing, ran for 10 times for 128 yards in the fourth quarter alone and scored on fourth-quarter runs of 1, 20, and 37 yards.
While not any one sequence in a two-score game will change the outcome, one earlier in the fourth quarter possibly turned the tide in the game.
Up by three, Redbank Valley was facing third-and-4 from its own 22-yard line.
The Bulldogs (12-2), who ran for just 34 yards on the night and who ended the night with just one rushing first down while passing for 301 yards with 13 passing first downs, elected to keep it in on the ground with a power run from Ashton Kahle, who had entered the game with just six carries all season.
Predictably, the run went nowhere with Kahle being stopped for a yard.
Redbank Valley then punted, and Shane Cornali returned the boot 22 yards to the Bulldog 33-yard line.
Two plays later, Sieg, who ran to the one of the first play of the drive, drove into the end zone to give Fort Cherry the lead for good, 20-16.
“We broke down on our blocking schemes,” Gold said when asked about the lack of success on the ground. “Our offensive philosophy is we’re always going to put the football where the defense isn’t. When a team gives us a 3-2 box and we have five offensive linemen, we have to be able to run the football, so obviously, we’ll look at it on tape. It would be willing to bet that we had the look we wanted. Obviously, for our passing game to work, we have to be able to run the football. But it just wasn’t working tonight.”
Redbank Valley went three and out on its next drive, and then Fort Cherry all but put the game away with a nine-play, 77-yard drive that took five minutes off the clock and ended on a 20-yard Sieg touchdown run with 4:35 to play that put the Rangers (15-0) ahead 26-16.
“We believe, that after a while, we should be able to wear people down,” Garry said. “It’s something our offensive line has done a great job of all year. That was a great performance by our offensive line.”
The Bulldogs gave themselves one last chance when Owen Clouse caught a 31-yard touchdown pass from Braylon Wagner with 2:20 to go to get back within three, 26-23.
Redbank Valley also caught a break on the touchdown when Fort Cherry was called for roughing the passer with the penalty enforced on the kickoff.
But the Bulldogs gave five yards back on offside on the initial onside kick, and then the second onside kick went just eight yards with Fort Cherry covering it.
The Rangers ended up scoring one final touchdown on a 37-yard run by Sieg with 1:14 to play, and Wagner was intercepted in the end zone with 10 seconds left to seal the game.
“For this football team, I had privately had a goal and basically was checking the list,” Gold said. “I thought they had the capability of winning Region 2, and they did that. I thought they had the capability of winning District 9, and they did that with injuries with a backup quarterback. I thought they had the capability of beating District 10. When you meet the District 7 champion, you know what you’re up against and, basically, for me this is where this team going into this game met expectations. And we needed a little bit of magic to get over the hump. Tonight we just didn’t get a little bit of magic like two years ago.”
Fort Cherry will meet defending champion Steelton-Highspire, in the title game at Cumberland Valley High School Thursday.
FORT CHERRY 33, REDBANK VALLEY 23
REDBANK VALLEY 6 3 7 7 – 23
FORT CHERRY 7 0 6 20 – 33
Score by Quarter
First Quarter
RV – Ashton Kahle 34 pass from Braylon Wagner (kicked blocked), 9:57
FC – Matt Sieg 2 run (Nik Massey kick), 4:49
Second Quarter
RV – Owen Clouse 33 field goal, 2:06
Third Quarter
FC – Ethan Faletto 5 run (rush failed), 8:32
RV – Kahle 68 pass from Wagner (Clouse kick), 7:45
Fourth Quarter
FC – Sieg 1 run (Massey kick), 10:35
FC – Sieg 20 run (pass failed), 4:35
RV – Clouse 31 pass from Wagner (Clouse kick), 2:29
FC – Sieg 37 run (Massey kick), 1:14
