No. 3 McKeesport uses late TD to hand No. 1 Penn-Trafford 1st loss

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, October 27, 2017 | 10:57 PM

McKeesport gave the WPIAL's playoff committee plenty to think about on the final night of the regular season.

Quarterback J.J. Harper scored on an 8-yard run with 1:16 remaining, and the No. 3 Tigers survived a 45-yard field-goal attempt that fell just short to hand top-ranked Penn-Trafford its first loss, 27-24, in the Big East 9 finale Friday in McKeesport.

The win moved the Tigers (7-2, 5-2) to third place in the conference, while Penn-Trafford (9-1, 6-1) finishes as conference co-champs with Gateway. The loss throws Penn-Trafford's status as the presumptive No. 1 seed in Class 5A into question but seeding might not matter much come next week's WPIAL quarterfinals.

“(Class) 5A is the real deal. There's only eight playoff teams. We lost to the fourth-place team and the second-place team, and we beat first place,” McKeesport coach Matt Miller said. “Two weeks in a row, we've been battle tested. So when you get into those games the next couple of weeks, you know what to expect. Anybody can beat you any night here.”

Penn-Trafford rallied from a 20-10 halftime deficit with rushing touchdowns of 6 and 17 yards by quarterback Cam Laffoon, giving the Warriors their first lead at 24-20 with 4:21 remaining.

McKeesport responded on their final drive with what was successful all game — their triple-option ground attack paced by the inside running of senior Layton Jordan.

Jordan finished with 210 yards and two touchdowns on a season-high 28 carries, and he was the go-to back on the 10-play final drive with runs of 3, 13, 9, 18 and 3 yards. His effectiveness made Harper more dangerous when he elected to keep on the option, which is exactly what he did for the go-ahead touchdown.

“(Jordan) is a great talent and a great kid,” Miller said. “He's big, strong and physical, and this was the type of game, if you're going to win these tight ones, you have to be able to control the ball.”

Harper finished with 150 yards on 10 carries, and McKeesport rolled up 452 yards rushing while attempting just two passes. The Tigers came out of the gate strong, as five of their first nine plays were runs for at least 15 yards on the way to an early 12-0 lead.

“McKeesport came to play, and early on, they set the tone. We just didn't play as good as we can play,” Penn-Trafford coach John Ruane said. “We need to do better as a staff. We need to do better as players. It was a wake-up call, for certain.”

The Warriors put together one last drive to give themselves a shot, going 48 yards in eight plays to set up a third-and-10 at the McKeesport 23 with 12.4 seconds remaining. Laffoon ran up the middle for 17 yards on the next play, but the play was wiped out by an illegal motion penalty.

That set up Penn-Trafford kicker Nick Tarabrella, who had an earlier 22-yard field goal, with a 45-yard attempt to force overtime, but his kick into a steady breeze fell short and hit the support post under the crossbar.

“It's about a 25-yard field goal if not for that penalty, and we had that wind in our face, so even losing those 5 yards was a killer,” Ruane said. “I don't think we played a great game, and credit McKeesport, they did. We fought back, but they came to play.”

John Gay led the Penn-Trafford offense with 172 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries. Laffoon had 141 yards on 15 carries, but he also completed just two passes before the final drive, finishing the game 5 of 14 for 86 yards.

Matt Grubba is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at mgrubba@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Grubba_Trib.

Tags: McKeesport, Penn-Trafford