East Allegheny denies Deer Lakes chance to clinch playoff spot with runaway win

By: Jerin Steele
Friday, October 14, 2022 | 10:41 PM

Previous Next

A large crowd lined the streets for the annual homecoming parade and then filed into Lancer Stadium hoping to watch the Deer Lakes football team clinch a playoff berth for the third time in program history.

But East Allegheny and its duo of Michael Cahill and Amir Rollins had other ideas.

Cahill passed for 243 yards and four touchdowns, and Rollins had three total touchdowns to pace the Wildcats to a 42-7 Class 3A Allegheny 6 Conference game Friday night.

“That is about as well as we’ve played all year,” East Allegheny coach Dom Pecora said. “You try to find something wrong, and I’m sure I will on film, but that was pretty good. And it was against a really good team. (Deer Lakes) is a playoff team.”

Cahill made his presence known on the third play of the game. He threw a 20-yard slant pass on the mark to Brennen Rutledge, who took it 70 yards for a touchdown.

Amir Rollins scored on a 38-yard run out of a wildcat formation on East Allegheny’s next possession to make it 14-0.

Deer Lakes (4-4, 2-1) got on the board on the next drive when Derek Burk found Wayne Love for a 58-yard touchdown, making it 14-7 five and a half minutes into the game.

Then, Cahill made the play of the night — and maybe the season — for East Allegheny.

He rolled to his left, avoided two Lancer defenders trying to sack him, ran backward 5 yards and rolled back to his left before uncorking a bomb to a wide open Steve Yusko for a 67-yard touchdown.

“That certainly wasn’t how we drew it up,” Pecora said. “You’re watching him and you’re like … What the heck are you doing?…What the heck are you doing? … Oh what a play!”

Late in the first half, East Allegheny (6-2, 2-1) ran a fake punt, and Cahill threw a pass to Rutledge 1 yard short of the first down, but Deer Lakes was flagged for a late hit out of bounds. The penalty gave the Wildcats a first-and-10 on the Lancers 30.

Cahill found Rollins for a 33-yard touchdown to cash in the penalty and make it 28-7 going into halftime.

“They were the better football team tonight,” Deer Lakes coach Tim Burk said. “We have to be more disciplined and stay with our guys and correct our mistakes. (East Allegheny) is a good football team. You can’t deny that. We knew it was going to be tough, but we just have to get better.”

To go along with his efforts on offense, Cahill also had a pair of sacks and fumble recovery on defense.

The fumble recovery came on a second-and-goal on the Wildcats’ 8-yard line and ended an 18-play drive by Deer Lakes to begin the second half.

Two plays after the recovery, Rollins busted open an 84-yard touchdown run to make it 35-7.

“Amir is a tremendous kid and he made plays today,” Pecora said.

Cahill connected with Rutledge again on a 23-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter on a fourth-down play to close the scoring.

Deer Lakes still can clinch a playoff spot with one more victory against either Shady Side Academy or Freeport the next two weeks or as early as Saturday with a Valley loss to Shady Side Academy.

“We’re trying to set a standard where we want conference championships and to do better than just getting in,” coach Burk said. “At the end of the day, we can control what we can control. We’ll move onto Shady Side Academy next week and try to get better.”

Jerin Steele is a freelance writer

Tags: Deer Lakes, East Allegheny