Yacamelli leads Penn-Trafford as Warriors celebrate senior night with win over Latrobe

By: Dave Mackall
Friday, October 24, 2025 | 11:11 PM

For John Ruane, all that remained was taking care of his seniors on Penn-Trafford’s senior night.

Make no mistake, the Warriors’ longtime football coach adores every one of them.

“It’s a big goal, obviously, to get them into the lineup. We have some great kids,” Ruane said. “And they’re absolutely deserving.”

With the conclusion of Class 5A No. 4 Penn-Trafford’s 42-14 victory but a formality Friday night, Ruane emptied his bench and liked what he saw.

“They came in and they played their butts off,” he said. “They’re high-quality players, too. This isn’t charity. Those guys went in the game, and we expected them to do the things … we ran our regular playbook, and they executed it and they played great on defense. So I’m really proud of those guys. They don’t complain. They don’t pout. They just come and do their job.”

First, Penn-Trafford’s regulars took care of business again. Then, the subs — many of whom are seniors — wrapped up the Warriors’ sixth consecutive victory since their only loss to No. 3 Woodland Hills, the Big East Conference leader.

Both teams will await their WPIAL playoff seedings, which will be revealed Saturday.

While the P-T seniors took center stage, it was sophomore Cade Yacamelli who stole the show for the Warriors (with help from junior Ben Grabowski).

Yacamelli rushed or 122 yards and scored two touchdowns — one on an 81-yard run — passed for another and returned the opening kickoff 71 yards to finish with more than 200 all-purpose yards.

Yet, he said it might not have been his best game.

“I had a little over 100 yards rushing and scored four touchdowns against Plum,” said Yacamelli with a grin.

But it was hard to overlook his latest performance.

Grabowski also topped 100 yards rushing against Latrobe, finishing with 112 on 12 carries, two more than Yacamelli’s total.

“In these last few weeks, we really came together as a team and just came out on top and kept winning,” Yacamelli said.

Penn-Trafford needed less than a minute to take a 7-0 lead when Yacamelli returned the opening kickoff 71 yards to the Latrobe 19. Two plays later, quarterback Nate Desmond reached the end zone on a 3-yard run.

The Warriors’ third possession produced Desmond’s 9-yard touchdown pass to Nick Ponko to boost the P-T lead to 14-0 with 2:32 remaining in the first quarter.

Grabowski’s 44-yard run set up the score.

After Jack Miller’s failed 49-yard field-goal attempt, which would have set a Penn-Trafford record, the Warriors defense took a hit by Latrobe freshman running back Dante Durigon.

With the Latrobe running game sputtering, first-year coach Tom McIntyre inserted the 5-foot-7, 155-pound Durigon into the lineup, and he responded with 10 carries for 89 yards, including a 12-yard scoring run to pull Latrobe within 14-7.

The little-used Durigon, who was part of a committee filling in for injured sophomore A.J. Yeboah, finished with 130 yards on 18 carries.

“We’ve got a lot of young kids who got considerable time this year,” McIntyre said. “Dante is a kid all year who’s shown us in practice how good he is. He really caught our eye to the point that ‘This kid’s really to play.’ He’s a tough, physical kid.”

The Wildcats were aided by a pass-interference call on the drive after wasting Durigon’s 67-yard run on their previous possession, which stalled at the Penn-Trafford 19.

P-T countered to take a 21-7 halftime lead on Yacamelli’s 81-yard touchdown run through the middle of the Latrobe defense with 2:30 left before the break.

“Cade has been consistent all year,” Ruane said. “He’s had some big games, some big plays within those games. I’ll tell you what, at that point that he hit that run, we really needed it because things were kind of stale. That was the spark we needed to kind of put the foot on the gas. He took care of business there.”

Ruane understands the ups and downs of a season, but it’s getting late in the year now.

“We’ve had a couple of slow starts at home here the last few games,” he said. “We need to rectify that, obviously, because if you have a slow start against the wrong team, and I’ve got news, every team’s good from here on out and you’re in trouble. We better play with some desperation in the first half and not just the second half. We’ve seemed to clean things up at halftime, but we can’t have a slow start moving forward.”

The Warriors, behind Yacamelli, poured it on in the second half. His 7-yard touchdown run and 18-yard scoring pass to Landyn Stikkel in the third quarter gave Penn-Trafford a 35-7 advantage.

Reserve senior running back Nico Cox added an 8-yard touchdown run in the fourth for the Warriors before Latrobe added Ty Wisniewski’s 13-yard scoring pass to Rob Young in the closing minutes of a running clock.

Tags: Latrobe, Penn-Trafford