Da’sjon Craggette carries Southmoreland to blowout victory

By: Dave Mackall
Friday, September 1, 2023 | 10:55 PM

The spotlight on a pair of Westmoreland County running backs with 200-yard games last week during the opening night of high school football shifted Friday night to Southmoreland’s Da’sjon Craggette.

The 5-foot-11, 190-pound senior ran every which way again, finishing with 193 yards and three touchdowns to lead the visiting Scotties to a 48-7 rout of Ligonier Valley.

“I spent time coaching at Clairton when they had all those great (state championship) teams with great athletes, and Craggette is as good as any of them,” Southmoreland coach Tim Bukowski said. “He’s a phenomenal player.”

Kadin Keefer threw two touchdown passes to Ty Keffer covering 9 and 39 yards in the second quarter for Southmoreland.

Craggette transferred to Geibel Catholic from Greensburg Central Catholic and competes as part of a co-op with Southmoreland because Geibel does not sponsor a football program.

He scored on Southmoreland’s first play, racing 66 yards to the end zone, then added touchdown runs of 6 and 28 yards during a first half that saw the Class 2A Scotties (2-0) race to a 35-0 halftime lead and set off a second-half running clock via the mercy rule.

“He’s really good,” Ligonier Valley coach Roger Beitel said. “He’s big. He’s strong. He’s fast. And this is two weeks of us really having poor tackling. That just accentuates when you have a great back and we tackle as poorly as we did. Then, that great back looks even better. Yeah, he’s good. He’s a great addition to their football team.”

Craggette’s near 200-yard performance — he carried just 12 times — follows a 217-yard effort in Southmoreland’s season-opening, 34-7 victory over McGuffey on Aug. 25.

“He runs hard. Even when he doesn’t get the big game-breaking touchdown, he still gives you everything he’s got inside and makes people miss,” Bukowski said. “He’s a home run hitter. He’s had big touchdowns both weeks. We’ve just got to give him a little lane and he’ll take it. He does it all week at practice. Same thing. He’s got good vision.”

Ligonier Valley junior speedster John Jablunovsky, who opened the year with 208 rushing yards in a 28-14 victory over Springdale, couldn’t escape Southmoreland’s smothering defensive swarm.

“Our defense so far this year has played exceptional,” Bukowski said. “They took some pride because they knew (Jablunovsky) is a good back and they wanted to shut him down and make sure he didn’t have the kind of game he had last week. For the most part we kept him in check.”

Jablunovsky’s brother, Mark Jablunovsky, was knocked out of the game in the first half on a late hit that sent him to the ground, where he stayed for about 10 minutes before being helped off the field and did not return.

Keefer finished the night 6 for 8 for 138 yards before giving way to backup Caden Matthews, who was 3 for 5 for 71 yards.

Ethan Shawley and Shawn Hollis added a pair of short scoring runs for the Scotties, who will entertain Derry next Friday night.

Aaron Dennison’s 17-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter accounted for the only scoring for Class 2A Ligonier Valley (1-1), which visits Greensburg Salem on Friday night.

“We were just happy we played four good quarters. That was the emphasis this week,” Bukowski said. “Last week, we had a horrible first half — penalties, turnovers. We just wanted to clean things up and get better this week, and I think we showed we were a lot better today.”

Southmoreland avenged last year’s 27-18 loss to Ligonier Valley, whose roster lists just one senior, injured reserve lineman Noah Glunk.

“We started seven sophomores and a freshman,” Beitel said. “We’re young, but we have a varsity schedule to play. We played a really good football team and we got our butts handed to us.”

Tags: Ligonier Valley, Southmoreland