McKeesport coach Matt Miller was just beside himself on the sideline.
His Tigers were dominating Montour in every possible metric, yet they were stuck in a tie game late in the third quarter.
“It was scary. I was like, ‘This is how you lose games,’ ” Miller said. “I thought we’d be up a couple, and then it was a fumble and a bad penalty. I got a little nervous.”
Miller needn’t have worried. All he had to do was cast a Spell — or, in this case, two — on the Spartans.
Senior running back Keith Spell was an absolute beast. He carried 31 times for 171 yards and three touchdowns and also sacked Montour (10-2) quarterback Jake Wolfe five times, including three on the Spartans final drive, as No. 2 McKeesport (10-1) pulled away late for a 28-14 victory Friday in the WPIAL Class 4A football semifinals at West Mifflin.
Talk about a MOSTER GAME!!
— Keith Barnes (@kbarnes_pghsprt) November 18, 2023
@KeithSpell4 with 31 carries for 171 yards and three touchdowns...oh and FIVE SACKS as @McKTigersFB knock off @MontourFootball 28-14 in the @wpial7 Class 4A semis.
@PGSportsNow pic.twitter.com/pIUsM9MkaQ
Even Spell couldn’t believe the numbers he put up.
“I had five sacks? That was my team. They brought me up,” Spell said. “I was worried about defense and I’m glad I did what I had to do and scored.”
Keith Spell may have carried the bulk of the load for McKeesport, but he certainly wasn’t alone. His brother, Kemon, a freshman, carried eight times for 123 yards, including the go-ahead touchdown on a 57-yard inside reverse he took around left end for a touchdown on the final play of the third quarter.
Anthony Boyd also had 14 carries for 100 yards, as McKeesport finished with 59 carries for 420 yards on the ground.
“Those (runners) are special, but there are a lot of guys that can do some great things,” Miller said. “The O-line creating those big holes for us, it was definitely a team effort, and those are the guys that were shining for us.”
McKeesport was able to hold Wolfe, one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in the WPIAL, to an average one-dimensional passer. He finished 12 of 26 for 185 yards, numbers padded because of an 87-yard second-quarter touchdown pass to Daniel Batch.
On the ground, Wolfe had just 4 yards on 14 carries and was sacked six times. But because of several McKeesport miscues, the Spartans were tied 7-7 at the intermission.
“We were 7-7 at halftime, and I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, we definitely have a shot here,’ ” Montour coach Lou Cerro said. “But McKeesport is a really good football team and you could see, when you don’t play sound football against them, they’re going to burn you.”
Even after both teams committed turnovers on their opening possessions of the second half and then traded touchdowns to make it 14-14, McKeesport finally took the lead for good on the Kemon Spell touchdown.
Montour sensed the moment was slipping away and faked a punt on a 4th-and-15 from its own 35. But when Keino Fitzpatrick was stopped after a 12-yard gain, McKeesport put the game away.
And, of course, it was Keith Spell who put it away with a 12-yard score, his third of the game, with 5:43 left to play that gave the Tigers some breathing room with a two-touchdown advantage that turned into a trip to the finals next week at Acrisure Stadium.
“The fullback killed us. We tried everything we could,” Cerro said. “We actually did a good job, but the kid’s just a special player and he made plays all night.”
Considering how things began, it looked like McKeesport would literally run Montour off the field.
Following a Spartans punt, the Tigers flexbone offense kicked into high gear. Montour couldn’t stop the McKeesport running attack, as Boyd and Keith Spell took turns carving their way through the defense.
But when the Tigers appeared ready to take the lead, they faltered. Spell appeared ready to pound into the end zone for the opening score but was stripped at the Montour 3 and the Spartans staved off the early threat.
They were not so fortunate on the second Tigers drive.
Again, McKeesport relied solely on its running game, and this time, Spell made no mistake. He held onto the football and ground through the middle for a 13-yard touchdown that gave the Tigers a 7-0 lead with 4:03 remaining in the first quarter.
A third Montour punt gave McKeesport its worst field position at its own 16, but that didn’t make a difference. The Tigers ran through the Spartans defense at will and appeared to take a two-touchdown lead on a 16-yard jet sweep by Kemon Spell. But when the play was called back on a holding penalty, the Tigers tried an ill-advised halfback option pass on 4th-and-9 from the Spartans 21. The ball was intercepted in the end zone, and the drive thwarted.
After all the chances McKeesport had, it only had a 7-point lead. And all it took was one play to erase it.
A McKeesport punt pinned Montour at its own 1, but the team was able to get out of the shadow of its own goalposts when Wolfe hit A.J. Alston for a 12-yard gain. One play later, Wolfe hit Batch on an inside slant and he went the distance, 87 yards, for the touchdown to tie it 7-7 with 2:25 remaining in the half.
It was the same play that Alston took to the house from backup quarterback Trey Hopper to close out the Spartans quarterfinals victory against Thomas Jefferson.
But when the third quarter began, McKeesport fed Montour a steady dose of Keith Spell, who had 16 carries for 104 yards and two touchdowns in the second half to lead the Tigers to the win.
“This is my first time going to Acrisure,” Keith Spell said. “I’m excited, but we’ve still got to lock in.”
Keith Barnes: kbarnes.pg@gmail.com and Twitter @kbarnes_pghsprt
First Published: November 18, 2023, 3:47 a.m.
