After series of tough losses, Plum football aims to finish strong

By: Michael Love
Saturday, October 21, 2023 | 11:01 AM

Previous Next

The Plum football team, for the second year in a row, will cap its season Friday with a nonconference matchup against Indiana.

The Mustangs last year went out with a bang in a 46-27 victory over Indiana which saw the now-graduated Eryck Moore set the career-yards record for a Plum running back.

Coach Matt Morgan hopes his team can have a similar outcome against an Indians team also on the outside of the WPIAL playoff picture.

“It’s been tough on everyone, but we all keep coming to work and keep battling,” Morgan said of his team, which fell to 2-6 overall and 0-4 in Big East Conference play with a 21-6 loss to Penn-Trafford on Oct. 13.

“The kids work extremely hard every day, no matter what the circumstances are with what happened the week before or what they have coming up. I thought we played really well last week against Penn-Trafford. They gave tremendous effort from the start to the finish. It didn’t go unnoticed. We just fell a little bit short. We had some key guys get hurt early in the game. A couple of plays didn’t go our way, but I was happy with their performance.”

Plum avoided the shutout against the Warriors when senior quarterback Sean Franzi found junior wideout Darian Nelson for a 10-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Nelson finished the game with nine catches for 76 yards.

Franzi completed 14 of 25 passes for 125 yards. His TD toss against P-T gave him nine for the season.

“It was 14-0 going into the half, and we had a field goal blocked that hurt us,” Morgan said.

“We had some other opportunities to make big plays. It was just a physical game for both teams. That is what we expected. Penn-Trafford always is a big and physical team and they always have a big, tough running back.”

Tailback Ben Grabowski carried the ball 16 times for 119 yards and all three Warriors touchdowns.

Key players on both sides of the football — senior linebacker Dom Beyer and senior wide receiver Zach Napierkowski — were banged up in the loss to Penn-Trafford and didn’t play in the Mustangs’ final Big East Conference matchup against Hempfield on Friday.

Morgan said last week he hoped to get both back for the Indiana game, but at the time, it was too early to tell if they would be cleared to get back on the field.

“It’s part of the game when you play Friday football,” Morgan said.

“You’re going to get banged up here and there. It just so happened that Week 8 was the week we got banged up. It’s tough seeing a lot of our good guys not able to practice or play. It’s that time of the year for a lot of teams.”

Beyer, Morgan said, was a rock for the Plum defense through the first seven weeks with a team-best 92 tackles.

Beyer, Napierkowski and Franzi will be three of 14 seniors, along with Jack Tongel, Michael Barr, Vinny Febbraro, Brandon Wiesenbach, Nate Kondas, Matt Horvatic, Logan Wiesenbach, Max Scheer, Devin Curler, Matt Loehlein, and Dallas Pugar who will be recognized prior to Friday’s game with the Indians.

Going into Week 8, Gateway, which topped Plum, 49-14, in Week 4, was the only team in the Big East that had clinched a playoff spot. The Gators went into their game with Norwin last Friday 4-0 in conference play.

Franklin Regional and Penn-Trafford, both 3-1 in the conference, meet this Friday with second place and an automatic WPIAL berth on the line.

The loser will finish third but will be alive for a wild card spot.

For Plum, it could have been a different story if it had held on to fourth-quarter leads against both Norwin and Franklin Regional.

The Mustangs had a 23-7 lead on Norwin before the Knights roared back for a 30-23 victory.

Plum held a close 26-24 lead on Franklin Regional before the Panthers erupted for 21 answered points on trio of rushing scores over the final 12 minutes.

“We have been harping a lot all season on finishing and executing down the stretch in games,” Morgan said.

“That dates back to our conditioning runs in the summer. I’ll take full responsibility for those losses. The main thing for the guys was to keep fighting day in and day out, keep fighting from the first whistle to the last. Last week (against Penn-Trafford) was the first time all year where we truly did fight from the beginning to the end. Again, I was pleased with the performance last week.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Plum