Penn Hills advances to semifinals with win over McKeesport

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, November 9, 2018 | 11:54 PM

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It’s been 11 years since Penn Hills and McKeesport met on the football field.

To catch up for lost time, McKeesport was in the giving mood.

The Tigers’ offense turned the ball over seven times and Penn Hills running back Tank Smith rolled for 218 yards on the ground as No. 2 Penn Hills downed No. 7 McKeesport, 34-7, in the WPIAL Class 5A quarterfinals Friday night at Fox Chapel.

“I couldn’t do it without my offensive line; they played their behinds off today,” Smith said. “We had a good game plan set up for McKeesport, who is a great team, and I just came out and executed the game plan. It was all the coaches and offensive line. I can’t even take all of the credit.”

Penn Hills (11-0) moves on to the Class 5A semifinals to face No. 3 Peters Township (10-2) next Friday at a site and time to be determined. Peters Township advanced on a late field goal to get a 38-35 win over No. 6 Penn-Trafford.

“We talked about all week just tackling every option on the field when we were on defense, creating turnovers and taking the ball away and that’s what we did tonight,” Penn Hills coach Jon LeDonne said.

For the second week in a row, Penn Hills started quick. And for the second week in a row, a turnover gave the Indians the short field on their first offensive possession.

Senior cornerback Dante Cephas, a Kent State recruit, picked off McKeesport (9-3) quarterback Konota Gaskins, giving the Indians the ball at the Tigers’ 40-yard line. Three plays later, senior quarterback Hollis Mathis connected with Cephas on a 26-yard touchdown strike to give the Indians the early 6-0 lead after the failed extra-point attempt.

“We practiced this all week, slants, posts, all of that,” Cephas said. “We were watching film, and we saw that they had one safety back and that’s all we had to do.”

Things began to snowball early for the Tigers.

On the very next possession, Gaskins fumbled and Aadeem Snell scooped up the ball and raced 35 yards for the touchdown. The score put Penn Hills ahead 12-0, and the Indians had run just three plays on offense. Gaskins, last week’s hero, was the Tigers’ top playmaker, rushing for 59 yards on 16 carries, all in the first half. He did not play in the second half due to a lower body injury.

“It felt like it was in slow motion just watching it,” McKeesport coach Matt Miller said. “(Turnovers) definitely killed us. The story over the past couple of weeks has been putting the ball on the ground.”

The McKeesport defense did provide its offense an opportunity when Quaran Sayles intercepted Mathis at the goal line and returned it out to the McKeesport 9-yard line. But once again, a Tigers’ fumble that was recovered by Smith set the dangerous Penn Hills offense up at the McKeesport 23-yard line.

Mathis found Cephas for another 26-yard touchdown pass to give the Indians a 20-0 lead going into halftime. Mathis finished the night 6 of 15 for 86 yards and three touchdowns.

“The coaches came up with a fantastic game plan,” Mathis said. “We were able to do what we need to do to make their defense wrong. That’s all we really try to do is make their defense wrong over there.”

The Mathis-to-Cephas connection wasn’t over. The two lifelong friends hooked for a 17-yard touchdown to cap off a nine-play, 62-yard drive and bring the score to 26-0 with just over 3 minutes remaining in the third quarter.

The Tigers’ offense managed to find a spark in the third quarter and put together a seven-play drive that reached deep into Indians territory, but the Penn Hills defense didn’t break and forced a turnover on downs.

Penn Hills senior defensive back Daequan Hardy picked off Tigers backup quarterback Wyatt Thomas. Devari Robinson came back on the next drive to pick off Mathis and returned it 65 yards to put the Tigers on the board and cut the score to 26-7.

“The turnovers are bad,” Mathis said. “I had two bad ones and if we can get rid of (those), I’d be more happy with the game.”

William Whalen is a freelance writer.

Tags: McKeesport, Penn Hills