Gateway notebook: Gators to cap regular season against Central Catholic

By: Michael Love
Sunday, October 22, 2023 | 11:01 AM

Purchase Photo Options

Purchase Photo Options

Previous Next

Gateway’s football team is winless in four nonconference games in 2023 and will cap the regular season with another nonconference matchup against Class 6A power Central Catholic on Friday at Antimarino Stadium.

But where it has counted in the race for a spot in the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs, the Gators have been on point.

Gateway hoped to make it a perfect 5-0 in conference play as it visited Norwin on Friday in the conference finale. The game was to be contested past the deadline for this week’s edition.

The Gators had clinched a playoff spot and the Big East title Oct. 6 with a down-to-the-wire 31-27 win over Penn-Trafford behind senior Brad Birch’s 232 passing yards and touchdown connections to Jaquon Reynolds and Kenny Lewis as well as Reynolds’ 76 rushing yards and a score on 18 carries.

Sophomore Tristan Huston also got in the scoring act by returning a Penn-Trafford onsides kick for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to extend Gateway’s lead to 31-19.

The win over the Warriors also kept the Victory Bell with the Gators after they won the bell back last year.

Bragging rights were on the line Oct. 13 as Gateway and McKeesport clashed in a nonconference game that always is high-spirited, intense and physical with talent on both sides making big plays.

Keith Spell, a 6-foot-2, 255-pound fullback, rushed for 202 yards and two touchdowns as McKeesport outlasted Gateway, 38-28.

The Gators led 14-0 in the first quarter, but the Tigers rallied. McKeesport built double-digit leads on two occasions, but Gateway responded both times.

It was 31-28 early in the fourth when Spell tallied his second TD, a 1-yard run.

Gateway returned a fumble for a touchdown, got two short TD runs from Reynolds, and found the end zone on a 59-yard pass from Birch to Lewis.

Birch finished 27 of 40 for 414 yards.

But the Gators had to stomach three empty possessions inside the McKeesport 5 — two that ended with fumbles and another on a turnover on downs.

“You’ve got to be able to punch it in, and we didn’t,” Gateway coach Don Holl told the Trib after the game. “And then we fumbled on top of it. When you’re down there, you’ve got to be able to finish.”

Boys soccer makes history

Gateway finished the regular season 8-5-2 overall and in third place in the Section 4-3A standings with an 8-4-2 mark, becoming the first Gators team to qualify for the WPIAL playoffs four consecutive seasons.

The previous top stretch of three in a row came between 1986-88.

First-year coach Mike Rugh hoped his players didn’t rest on just making the playoffs and wanted to see the team snap a string of first-round playoff exits, most recently to West Allegheny in 2020 and to Kiski Area last year and in 2021.

Gateway drew the No. 12 seed for the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs and was to take on No. 5 Montour in a first-round game Saturday.

The Gators upended section power Franklin Regional, 3-2, on Oct. 3 before falling to undefeated section champion and WPIAL No. 1 seed Plum, 5-2, on Oct. 5.

“We got two goals in on Plum, and they had only let in seven in 14 games coming in,” Rugh said.

“We really took that as a positive.”

Gateway suffered a close 3-2 loss at Latrobe on Oct. 10 as the Wildcats avenged an earlier 3-2 Gators victory.

“They got us on a late goal, and we couldn’t find the equalizer,” Rugh said.

“Both teams played really well in that game. We just didn’t play well enough to win.”

Junior James LoCoco scored against both Plum and Latrobe, junior Owen Echegary tallied a goal in the game with Plum, and junior Nick LoCoco found the back of the net against Latrobe.

Gateway closed out section play with a 3-1 win over Obama Academy behind two goals from senior Blake Marsh and a third from Echegaray.

Gators net a strong section finish

The Gateway volleyball team won five of six in Section 1-3A play down the stretch to clinch at least a tie for second place behind undefeated Hampton.

The Gators would own second outright if Plum were to have been upset by Penn Hills on Thursday in the section finale.

Gateway closed section matches at 9-3, and a 3-2 win over Plum on Oct. 5 avenged an earlier 3-1 loss to the Mustangs.

Riley expected the match to go down to the wire, and she was right.

Gateway won the first two sets before Plum rallied to tie the match. The deciding fifth set went beyond 15 points as the Gators outlasted the Mustangs, 17-15.

Gateway was to find out its first WPIAL-playoff opponent Friday when the pairings committee was to release the playoff brackets for all four classifications.

The Gators last year, in their first season down from Class 4A, returned to the WPIAL playoffs after finishing third in Section 1 at 8-4 and drew Laurel Highlands in a No. 16/No. 17 preliminary round matchup at Hempfield High School.

Gateway fell behind 2-0 before rallying with a 25-23 win in the third set. However, the Mustangs outlasted the Gators, 27-25, in the fourth set to close out the victory.

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: Gateway