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Wood survive Gateway, advances to another title game @WoodFootball @GatewayGatorsFB

Tagged under: District 12, District 7, Gameday Hub, News

| November 29, 2019

Vikings Head Coach Kyle Adkins telling his team they aren’t done yet.

Phil Cmor

ALTOONA — Robbie Meyer was endeavoring to dodge accolades as adeptly as teammate Kaelin Costello evaded would-be tacklers and Archbishop Wood pass rushers avoided blockers.

“I don’t see myself as the hero,” Meyer said. “I see the offense and the defense as the heroes. It’s a team effort.”

Then a middle-aged couple walked up to him. The man patted him on the shoulder.

“Great game,” the gentleman said, as the 5-foot-5, 135-pound Meyer accepted with a sheepish look on his face.

Oh well, kid, at least you tried to be magnanimous.

In the end, though, it was Meyer’s foot that was the deciding factor in a rollercoaster affair. His 25-yard field goal with 3 seconds left turned a day up to that point that he probably wouldn’t want to remember into a game that he’ll always remember and lifted Wood to a 24-21 victory over Gateway in the PIAA Class 5A football semifinals on Friday at Mansion Park.

 

“We couldn’t have won without those three points,” Wood senior lineman Dom D’Alessio said. “We’re going back to Hershey.”

Going back to Hershey for the ninth time in 12 years, in fact. The Vikings (10-3) will be shooting for their seventh state championship since 2008.

It took every bit of Wood’s postseason experience and savvy to pull this one out, too. Despite 239 yards and two long touchdown runs by Costello and nine Viking sacks, Gateway actually had more good chances to be leading at the end had it not been for four lost Gator fumbles and three touchdowns that were negated by penalties for the WPIAL champion.

Archbishop Wood, however, took the ball at its own 22 with 3:54 left in regulation and drove to the Gateway 7 by converting three first downs — the last on a brilliantly-executed naked bootleg by quarterback Max Keller.

To that point, the trip from Philadelphia to Altoona hadn’t been much to write home about for Meyer. Two of his kickoffs went out of bounds. His first punt was partially blocked and his second only went 19 yards. Then, one series earlier, he got a chance for redemption with a 40-yard field goal try, but the kick was short.

Gateway coach Don Holl called two timeouts to try to ice Meyer before the game-winning kick. It turned out that Meyer had ice water in his veins, though.

“At 25 yards, I make it 100 percent of the time,” Meyer said. “I just had to calm down.”

He did, and booted one through the uprights that probably would have been good from at least 35 yards away.

“There was absolutely no thought of not kicking it,” Wood coach Kyle Adkins said. “We had all the confidence that he was going to make it. There’s no quit in him.”

As emotionally high as the Vikings were after the game, the Gators were at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Vying for their second trip to the state finals in three years and the program’s first state championship, Gateway had a 14-7 lead in the second quarter and the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter on Bryson Venanzio’s 26-yard screen pass to Tui Faumuina-Brown called back because of an illegal block.

Gateway (12-3) fumbled six times in the game, losing four, including two in Wood territory in the third quarter. The Gators also had 10 penalties, two others of which also negated touchdowns — the team did overcome the flags to cash in the previous two times, though.

The Gators managed to almost pull it out while missing big-time Division I junior running back-safety prospect Derrick Davis, who was injured in the second half of last week’s WPIAL championship game with Peters Township and has more than 2,000 combined yards passing and receiving this season. Linemen and captains Jacques Taylor and Kelvon Nelson were lost to injuries during Friday’s contest, Taylor in the first quarter.

“We had a lot of chances to seize the moment. We shouldn’t have been down at the half. We had our chances,” Holl said. “We just made too many mistakes.”

Wood found ways to capitalize enough to pull it out. Costello, who only had 59 carries entering the game, burst 73 yards over a big hole on the right side for a touchdown to open the scoring, then, in the second quarter, tied the game by going up the middle on first-and-10 from the Wood 5 and taking it all the way to the end zone.

 

The Vikings went to the locker room with a 21-14 lead when Keller found a well-covered Cardel Pigford for a 22-yard scoring strike with just 36 seconds left in the first half.

“I was just trying to do what I could,” Costello said. “It was the blocking, 100 percent. The lanes just opened up.”

Meanwhile, the Viking pass rush was keeping Gateway from getting any traction and a bigger lead. Twice, the Gators had the ball deep in Archbishop Wood territory only to be forced to punt after consecutive Viking sacks. D’Alessio reached the quarterback three times in the game.

“We knew they passed a lot, so we wanted to get pressure on their quarterback,” D’Alessio said. “I thought we did very well.”

Gateway found success as the game progressed with the screen game. Venanzio finished 24-for-32 for 237 yards and two touchdowns — connecting with Faumuina-Brown from 15 yards out in the second quarter after two scores had been called back because of penalties on that drive, and then tying the game on a 30-yard tunnel screen to Chamor Price in the third quarter.

Price, who showed some amazing moves weaving through the defense while cutting back across the field on his score, finished with seven catches for 108 yards. He also had a 29-yard catch in the second quarter that set up a 2-yard Jay Johnson run that staked the Gators to a 14-7 advantage.

“I felt maybe we were the better team tonight,” Holl said. “He had a multitude of chances. We just didn’t get it done.”

 

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