New Castle beats South Fayette in Playoff Thriller

The New Castle Red Hurricanes and South Fayette Lions faced off at Central Valley for the semi-finals of the 4A WPIAL tournament.

The game started slowly, with both sides being very quiet throughout the first quarter. Finally, with two minutes left in the first quarter, New Castle intercepted the ball in Lions’ territory, which set up Marino Graham to take the quarterback keeper for the first points of the night, leaving the score 7-0 after the first quarter.

South Fayette’s strong run game would respond with Aayden Wright first score of the night to tie the contest up at 7-7.

As the game got closer to half, both sides would respond with a score, starting with a deep pass caught by

Kai Cox to set up the quarterback keeper for Marino Graham, and the Red Hurricanes took back the lead. The extra-point attempt was blocked. The Lions strike right back on a deep touchdown catch by Jacob. The extra point is good,  giving the Lions the lead going into halftime, 14-13.

The offense for both sides turned up in the second half, with South Fayette starting the second half with a statement run by

Aayden Wright to give the Lions an extension on their lead, 21-13.

New Castle didn’t back down to the challenge, with Marino Graham scoring his third rushing touchdown and a successful two-point attempt, tying it all up halfway through the third quarter, 21-21.

The Lions responded with a catch-and-run touchdown by Dylan Monz to put South Fayette with the lead once again, and finishing out the quarter up, 28-21.

The fourth quarter began with a combinations of turnovers and short drives for both sides. Finally, halfway through the quarter Kai Cox had a toe tap catch inside the two, followed by him running the ball into the endzone to even things out.

South Fayette’s Strong run game almost responded immediately with Aayden Wright driving the ball in for another touchdown to take the lead, 35-28.

At the end of the game New Castle had one last drive to keep season hopes alive. The Red Hurricanes drove down the field until they met inside the 10 with 2 seconds left on fourth down. A false start pushed the team back to the 11. On the final play, Marino Graham rolled out of the pocket, kept the ball alive, and heaved the ball to the endzone, where it was tipped by a New Castle player to who else but Kai Cox for the touchdown, 35-34.

New Castle decided to go for two, lined up, Marino Graham took the snap, and right before being tackles, tossed it to Jermaine Walker where he bulldozed defenders to get into the endzone and punched his team’s ticket to their first WPIAL 4A championship appearance since 2016, final score, 36-35.