It’s not really unusual for a team to score on a quarterback sneak.
It happens all the time, but not from 58 yards.
And that’s all McKeesport needed to escape Kittanning with a mistake-filled victory against Armstrong.
On a second-and-5 at his 42, McKeesport (3-0) quarterback Jacob Miller took a quarterback sneak up the gut and raced untouched to the end zone with 7:10 remaining in the fourth quarter as the Class 4A No. 4-ranked Tigers escaped with a 24-14 win.
His sneak came less than five minutes after Kanye Thompson shook loose for a 64-yard touchdown run on the last play of the third quarter that gave the Tigers the lead for good.
“With our offense, it’s so strange, they give you things and our center, Tyre Demery, said if we run that quarterback sneak, there’s nobody home,” McKeesport coach Matt Miller said. “He’s a three-year starter and you can trust him, so we hit it again and again.”
Miller hit that gap throughout the game. The senior carried 18 times for 144 yards and the score, but it was the quarterback sneak midway through the fourth quarter that broke Armstrong’s back.
“You don’t think about a quarterback that they’re going to break it,” Armstrong coach Frank Fabian said. “I told our kids that I liked the effort, they played hard, but it’s the execution that needs some work because we had chances to take control of the game and we didn’t.”
Armstrong (2-1) had a 14-10 lead at the intermission and drove the ball down the field on the opening drive of the second half but missed a 20-yard field goal that would have increased its advantage to a touchdown. The River Hawks also missed a 26-yarder with 4:53 remaining when they were trailing by 10.
“When you leave a good team hanging around, they’re going to find a way to win,” Fabian said. “McKeesport has a proud program, they’ve won a lot of ballgames and that’s exactly what’s going to happen when you let a team hang around.”
McKeesport was also able to contain Armstrong junior quarterback Cadin Olsen, who came into the night as the leading passer in the WPIAL. Though he completed 12 of 24 for 148 yards and two touchdowns, he was largely ineffective in the second half with 73 yards in the air and did more running than passing.
He finished the game with 13 carries for 56 yards. McKeesport kept him in check by changing its defense during the game, putting more defenders near the scrimmage line.
McKeesport shot itself in the foot on quite a few occasions, but its most egregious miscues came in the red zone. The Tigers had two touchdowns called back.
On the first, McKeesport was leading, 7-0, had recovered an onside kick and had a fourth-and-goal at the River Hawks 19 when Jacob Miller rolled left and found a wide open Ahmir Culmer just inside the end zone. But the Tigers were flagged for holding and, instead of a 14-point lead before Armstrong’s high-octane offense even took the field, Jacob Miller was sacked for a 3-yard loss and the Tigers turned it over on downs.
The second was even tougher.
The Tigers were trailing, 14-7, and had gone to a hurry-up offense out of their Flexbone set that completely discombobulated the Armstrong defense. They took nearly six minutes off the clock in 14 plays and Jacob Miller hit Thompson for an apparent 3-yard touchdown with 18 seconds to play in the half. But an illegal shift call against McKeesport nullified the touchdown and they had to settle for a 26-yard Milton Campos field goal and a 14-10 halftime deficit.
“We had to take two touchdowns off the board, we had fumbles and we definitely put ourselves in a position where we made it difficult,” Matt Miller said. “I just kind of challenged them and told them they were a pretty good football team and things just started working out.”
First Published: September 11, 2021, 4:36 a.m.
Updated: September 11, 2021, 4:55 a.m.