Highlands bottles up Burrell star Trey Coury, rolls to victory

By: Ted Sarneso
Friday, October 11, 2024 | 10:33 PM

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At halftime of Friday’s Class 3A Allegheny 7 Conference showdown between Burrell and Highlands, the Golden Rams marching band played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

Bucs star running back Trey Coury saw plenty of love from the Highlands defense as he was held to 18 yards on 20 carries, and the Highlands offense exploded for a 61-0 win at Golden Rams Stadium in Natrona Heights.

After rushing for over 500 yards in the previous two weeks, Coury was bound to have the Rams’ full attention.

“The message to the defense was, ‘They’re going to run the ball. You just have to stop them, and if you do, you’re going to win the game,’ ” said Highlands coach Matt Bonislawski, whose team improved to 3-4, 2-3. “Our defensive coach had a great game plan, and they didn’t move the ball too much.”

The Rams defense stifled the Bucs ground attack and held them to 25 yards rushing, and quarterback Stephen Hasson only threw twice for 23 yards.

“Their defense played hard, did a good job,” said Burrell coach Shawn Liotta, whose team dropped to 2-6, 2-2. “I give them credit. They limited our run game. I’m not the one to make excuses, but we did have a few of our regular linemen out tonight and it is what it is. Their players did a good job.”

Offensively, the Rams initiated the mercy-rule clock halfway through the third quarter after running back Darius Cherry weaved in and out of Bucs defenders on his way for a 33-yard touchdown.

“We liked our matchups on offense,” said Bonislawski. “If they were going to load the box, we were going to go over the top, and if they backed off to play the pass, we were going to run the ball.”

Cherry ran the ball 11 times for 127 yards and two touchdowns.

The majority of the Golden Rams offense ran through senior quarterback Menage Lucas. He threw for 151 yards on 5 of 7 passing and three touchdowns and ran for 153 yards on 11 carries and tacked on three more touchdowns.

“Lucas is tremendous. He’s a phenomenal dual-threat player,” said Bonislawski. “I know he’s approaching 1,000 yards for both running and passing, if he didn’t get it tonight. He’s a great leader and has come to fully understand the offense and the quarterback position.”

Said Lucas: “I was on a mission tonight to get at least 1,000 yards rushing tonight, but I don’t think I got it.”

Lucas came up 8 yards short of 1,000 yards passing for the season and 84 yards short of 1,000 on the ground.

Lucas’ rushing touchdowns came from 22, 12 and 11 yards, but the 11-yard score was the highlight.

Right before Cherry scored his 33-yarder, Lucas hurdled a defender at the goal line on a 10-yard run to give Highlands a 34-0 lead.

“I saw him go for the legs, and I decided to rise up and get it across the goal line,” said Lucas.

Lucas had passing touchdowns of 15, 46 and 45 yards

Catching those passes were Jahmar Wright, who had three receptions for 90 yards and a touchdown, and Aiden Burford, who had two catches for 61 yards and two touchdowns.

“We came off hot,” said Lucas. “The defense came out playing physical and getting stops. We kept on playing together, and that’s what we needed to do.”

Burrell opened the game with a three-and-out.

When the Rams got the ball, Lucas scampered 21 yards to set up the Rams at the Burrell 15-yard line.

On third down, Lucas rolled to his right and found Burford open in the end zone for the first points of the game.

After a Highlands fumble, the Bucs took over at the start of the second quarter and had a big 16-yard pass play from Hasson to Talan Newcomer, but Burrell began to lose yards and had an intentional grounding penalty, which forced them to punt.

On the punt, Coury had Golden Rams in his face, eluded them and got a punt off that rolled beyond the line pf scrimmage and hit a Highlands player, making it a free ball and a Burrell lineman landed on it for a new set of downs for the Bucs.

Burrell again went backwards and punted.

On the second TD drive, Lucas drove the Golden Rams down the field with a 40-yard pass to Wright and a 30-yard run to put the Rams inside the 15-yard line.

Once again on third down, Lucas rolled to his right, but stayed inbounds and ran in for a 12-yard score to make it 14-0 Rams.

With just over 2 minutes left in the first half, Highlands struck quickly when Lucas went play action, dropped back with no pressure and found Burford wide open for a 46-yard score.

Early in the second half, Cherry sprinted 65 yards for a Golden Rams touchdown to extend the lead to 28-0.

At the end of the game, there wasn’t a whole lot for the Bucs to be happy about, and Liotta had only one message for his players:

“Keep battling hard and playing hard. We need to get ready for next week and go from there.”

Liotta was not pleased with Highlands running up the score at the end of the game.

“They went and ran the score up on our JV guys, our young guys and I hope it makes them feel good. He’ll coach his team, and I’ll coach mine.”

Bonislawski and his staff heard the sentiment from Liotta in the postgame handshake line and made it clear he was only focused on his team.

“I’m not worried about that, and I don’t have much to say about it,” Bonislawski said. “We’ve been through a lot the last three weeks, and I’m only worried about Highlands and no one else.”

Tags: Burrell, Highlands