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Bishop McDevitt gets physical, runs past Pine-Richland in PIAA Class 5A semifinals

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Saturday, November 30, 2024 | 12:19 AM

ALTOONA — Bishop McDevitt is headed to the state finals, thanks to a decades-old commitment by the Crusaders to embrace WPIAL football.

The District 3 champion got three more touchdowns from its record-setting quarterback, but Bishop McDevitt relied most on the physical running of Nazir Jones-Davis. The junior rushed 29 times for 229 yards in a 28-14 victory over Pine-Richland in a PIAA Class 5A semifinal Friday night at Mansion Park Stadium.

Jones-Davis ran for 68 yards on his first carry.

“We talked about it all week,” Bishop McDevitt coach Jeff Weachter said of matching Pine-Richland’s style. “I told them, I love the way they play. I watched the film. They’re physical. Even their small guys are physical. (Tanner Cunningham) will knock the crap out of you. We had to be physical to match their physicality.”

In all, the Crusaders ran the ball 46 times and passed 13.

Senior quarterback Stone Saunders pushed his state-record touchdown total to 202 with passes of 7, 8 and 68 yards, helping the Crusaders take leads of 21-0 and 28-7. But the Kentucky-bound recruit completed just five passes for 133 yards.

The Rams did a solid job limiting the pass, but they were left searching for an answer for Jones-Davis. The Crusaders took an early 7-0 lead on a 3-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.

“We know what Stone does. (Jones-Davis) surprised me,” Pine-Richland coach Jon LeDonne said. “I think he’s a heck of a running back. He runs very powerful, very strong. We got hats to the ball. Sometimes we had an opportunity to get him down and we just didn’t.”

Bishop McDevitt led 21-0 at halftime.

Pine-Richland (11-2) got a pair of second-half touchdown passes from sophomore Aaron “Oobi” Strader, who threw a 21-yarder to Jay Timmons in the third quarter and a 29-yarder to Jajaun Webb in the fourth. Strader completed 15 of 27 passes for 197 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.

But the hole was too big to escape.

The Rams were trying to reach the finals for the second time in three years, but hurt themselves with 11 penalties, including two that negated a pair of touchdowns in the third quarter. Both would-be scoring drives later ended with lost fumbles.

“I think we played a decent half of football in the second half,” LeDonne said. “But we came out a little bit slow, dragging, and they put 21 up on us in the first half. We were just behind the sticks all game.”

Bishop McDevitt (13-2) is headed to the state finals for the sixth time under Weachter. After Friday’s win, he credited a 2004 loss to a different WPIAL team for making his team tougher nowadays.

“We went to the state semifinals on this field and we had Shady McCoy,” Weachter said. “That Pittsburgh Central Catholic team that people still say is the best they’ve ever seen held Shady to 30 yards.

“They out-physicaled us.”

A year after losing 15-0 to Central Catholic, Bishop McDevitt lost 14-13 to McKeesport in another state semifinal. As a result, Weachter said he scheduled some games against WPIAL teams starting in 2010. Most recently, the Crusaders crossed paths with then-WPIAL champion Aliquippa in the 2020 and ‘21 Class 4A state finals.

“Those Aliquippa teams were pretty physical too,” Weachter said.

Bishop McDevitt took a 7-0 lead Friday with a two-play touchdown drive on its second possession. Jones-Davis ran for 64 yards on first down and scored with a 3-yard run on the next snap.

In the second quarter, Saunders capped two run-heavy drives with short touchdown passes. He threw a 7-yarder to sophomore Jontai Quick early in the quarter and added an 8-yarder to Dominic Diaz just before halftime to lead 21-0.

In the fourth, Quick scored again. He fought off two tacklers and ran 68 yards for Saunders’ third touchdown throw and a 28-7 lead.

Saunders boosted his touchdown total while Jones-Davis had 137 rushing yards on Bishop McDevitt’s four scoring drives.

“We wanted to take the quarterback and the deep threat away, and we did that most of the game,” LeDonne said. “But the running back hurt us. When you get a hat to the football you’ve got to get him down, and we just didn’t do that.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

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