The Greatest Games I Ever Saw (Part 3 – High Scoring Contests)
Tagged under: News, The Greatest Games Ever Played in PA High School Football History
Phil Myers | April 14, 2023
(Note: This is a multi-part series of weekly articles that will appear every Friday through June regarding all of Pennsylvania’s greatest games I’ve seen from the 1970s through 2022. I was just a young whipper-snapper in the 60s, joined the Marines in the 70s, and didn’t get to witness many games in the 80s. From the 90s on, I have traversed the state looking for intriguing games and teams I have never seen before. All of these game recaps are from my memory, my notes, and some research which included newspaper articles from the DuBois Courier-Express, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Patriot News. Since I am a staff of one, time did not permit me to look up every player I witnessed to see where they went to college and if they played in the NFL. So, obviously I may have missed a few and for that I apologize. There are also some great games I saw that may have eluded my memory and notes over the years which I regret.)
Meadville 107 DuBois 90 – Friday September 11th, 2015 was the day. Mansell Stadium in DuBois was the place. Eight national records were broken and one was tied. Twelve state records were broken. The game lasted three hours and forty-five minutes. After a while it was kind of like witnessing an old Twilight Zone or Outer Limits TV show that might never end.
Meadville’s Journey Brown, who went on to play at Penn State, rushed for 722 yards and 10 touchdowns on 30 carries that historic night. He would have had 11 TDs, but one was called back before halftime. Matt Miller, the DuBois QB making his first varsity start, threw for 788 yards and 10 touchdowns. His main receiver, Colin Read, had 9 receptions for 362 yards and 3 touchdowns. Early in the game Miller over threw a wide-open receiver and later one of his receivers dropped a sure touchdown or DuBois would have had another pair of touchdowns. If Brown’s TD before the half would have stood and DuBois would have connected on those 2 other passes, the score may have ended up something like 114-104!!
After the opening quarter the game was tied at 28. The Beavers of DuBois led 56-51 at halftime. Meadville’s Bulldogs led 85-82 at the end of three, then scored the first 22 points in the fourth to seal the game. In fact, amazingly, it wasn’t until late in the third when Meadville went up 79-69 that one team or the other was ahead by more than one score! Meadville’s defense picked off a couple of passes in the 2nd half that thwarted DuBois drives. A total of 1,908 yards were gained with Meadville having 1,004, all of which were by running the football. Both teams hung around long after the game shaking hands and talking about what had just happened, including Brown and Miller who sought each other out. It will be hard to ever beat the entertainment value of a ticket for those who paid to see this amazing contest. As the saying goes, it certainly was one for the ages!!!
State College 57 Erie McDowell 50 (3 O.T.) – Wow! What can one say about a game that was played in the snow, had 107 points scored, almost 840 yards of combined total offense, and took three overtimes to finally see someone emerge as the winner. That was the case on a very cold Friday night, November 18th, 2022 in St. College at Memorial Field as the Little Lions made one more play than the McDowell Trojans to come out the victor, 57-50, and advance to the next round of the 6A state playoffs. State College head coach Matt Lintal was asked if he’s ever been involved in a game like that before. “I have not,” was his reply, “we’ve had some overtimes, but haven’t had any triple overtimes. Unbelievable! Credit McDowell driving down here 4 hours and playing a whale of a game.”
The game went back and forth with each team scoring in every quarter. The game was tied 14-14 at the intermission, and the Little Lions were ahead by eight points at the end of the third quarter, 29-21. But McDowell came back in the fourth. The Trojans tied the game at 36 with only 24 ticks remaining on the clock. On that 63-yard game-tying drive McDowell’s quarterback, Ben Moore, completed an amazing 30-yard pass to Ray Jackson to convert a 4th and 16 play into a first down.
Considering the weather, there were only two turnovers the whole game, both committed by McDowell. There were plenty of great plays during the game by players from both teams, but none bigger than the play the State College defense made in the third overtime. The Little Lions had taken the 57-50 lead on their possession of the third OT. So, State’s defense had to hold McDowell which wasn’t having a lot of problems moving the ball. On the first play from the ten, the Trojan quarterback, Ben Moore, shoveled a pass to 6’2” 245-pound Christian Santiago whom the Lion defense had a tough time bringing down whenever he touched the ball. He bulled his way into the line for 6 yards before being whacked by Stephen Scourtis causing a fumble that Mike Gaul pounced on to end the game. By coincidence, it was Gaul, who caught the touchdown pass from Finn Furmanek to give the Little Lions the lead in the third overtime.
Clearfield 56 Penns Valley 49 – On a warm Friday night at the Bison Sports Complex in Hyde the Clearfield Bison won an instant classic thriller over the visiting Rams of Penns Valley. It was August 30, 2019 and this tremendous game produced over 1,050 yards of offense including 755 via the air. Aaron Tobias, Penns Valley’s quarterback, accounted for all six of his team’s touchdowns by throwing for five and rushing for the other. Tobias eventually broke the state single season touchdown pass record in 2019 with 54. Oliver Billotte, Clearfield’s quarterback, upstaged Tobias by accounting for all eight of the Bison TDs. He threw for four and rushed for four more.
Clearfield led after one by the score of 14-10. They led at the half 21-20, in fact they never trailed in the game. The teams traded scores like two young boxers trading punches. Only once did one team score consecutively and that was when Penns Valley fell behind 21-10 early in the second. The Rams scored a touchdown to cut Clearfield’s lead to 21-17 at the 9:12 mark and later Gage Ripka banged home a 45-yard field goal as time expired in the half. In the second half, the Rams tied the score four times but never could go out in front.
After a wild third quarter, the Bison led 42-35. The third found a combined four TD passes of 28 yards or more including an 87-yard bomb by Tobias. The quarter also saw four scores in the last 5 minutes and two scores in 15 seconds near the very end of the third stanza. Penns Valley proceeded to tie the game at 42 less than a minute into the final stanza. Clearfield regained the lead with 3:28 left on Billotte’s one-yard sneak, then Tobias ran 8 yards to tie the game with 2:25 remaining. The old adage, ‘they scored too soon,’ applied here. The Bison winning drive was capped by Billotte’s one-yard sneak with 6 seconds left on the clock.
Logan Snyder and Austin Fisher led the Ram receivers. Snyder had 194 yards and a touchdown. Fisher had 151 yards and 3 touchdowns. Jake Lezzer had 131 receiving yards for Clearfield and scored twice. Brett Zattoni rushed for 111 yards for the Bison. Billotte is 6’5” 250 pounds, so in college he played in 12 games in 2022 for Kent State on the defensive line. Tobias is at East Stroudsburg and for now is a backup QB that has gotten playing time. Snyder is at Weber State playing tight end. Stephen Ripka (Penns Valley) is a cornerback with Penn State.
Pine-Richland 48 Governor Mifflin 44 – My experience, in covering hundreds of high school football games and seeing hundreds before becoming part of the media, is that rarely will a high school team come back from a three-score deficit, let alone twice in one game including 22 points with 18 minutes (a quarter and a half) remaining. Yet that is precisely what the Rams accomplished through determination, desire, and execution on Saturday November 21, 2020 at Tiger Stadium in Hollidaysburg in this western Class 5A semi-final game.
Capitalizing on three straight Pine Richland turnovers to start the game, Governor Mifflin jumped out to a 21-0 advantage early in the second quarter. Pine-Richland answered by scoring a trifecta of touchdowns themselves to pull within two at 21-19. Two of their scores came after Mustang turnovers. Governor Mifflin then scored with 19 seconds left to take a 28-19 into the break. Two more Pine-Richland turnovers led to the Mustangs building an insurmountable (or so it seemed) 41-19 lead with six and a half minutes left in the third. Then things changed.
Using a good kick return and taking advantage of a couple of short punts the Rams scored 3 touchdowns in a little over 5 minutes to tie the game early in the fourth quarter. An eight-minute drive by the Mustangs only resulted in a field goal, but nonetheless Governor Mifflin regained the lead with three minutes left. On the second play from scrimmage after the kickoff, Pine-Richland’s QB Cole Spencer took off on a 54-yard jaunt down the sidelines to give the Rams their only lead of the game at 48-44. Spencer told me after the game that the play he scored on is called a Q Seal and that he never ran that play before. Spencer said, “The running backs usually run it.” Governor Mifflin failed to get a first down on their possession and Pine-Richland ran out the last 1:29 to win. P-R head coach Eric Kasperowicz said to his team after the contest, “that’s probably one of the most incredible games I’ve ever been a part of.”
Governor Mifflin held a humongous time of possession margin for the game. They had the ball for an amazing 34 minutes and 42 seconds compared to Pine-Richland’s meager 13 minutes and 18 seconds. So how did Pine-Richland win the game with such a distinct disadvantage in time of possession? Short fields. Five of the Rams’ seven scoring drives began in Mustang territory. The average start on those five drives was the Mifflin 33 and each time it took an average of 4.5 plays to score. The other two scoring drives both began at the Ram 38 which is not bad field position either. Governor Mifflin had two 100-yard rushers in Brandon Strausser and a guy named Nicholas Singleton (Penn State). Cole Spencer threw for 251 yards and 4 touchdowns in addition to scoring the winning TD. Pine-Richland won the state championship the next week beating Cathedral Prep.
Bishop McDevitt 47 Erie Cathedral Prep 42 – It was December 7, 2013 in DuBois at Mansell Stadium. Only about 800 fans saw this game, but they were treated to a great, great game between two phenomenal teams. This contest had a real feel of a heavyweight fight with each team throwing haymakers and not being able to knockout their opponent. By the end, they both were tired and running on fumes. McDevitt had one haymaker left and it came as time was winding down. The Crusaders needed that knockout blow to win, and they connected in the most dramatic fashion.
There was too much scoring to hit on each TD. Suffice it to say I’ll give some stats that tell a lot of how this game went. Eight of the thirteen touchdowns were 20 yards or more, including Prep’s Billy Fessler throwing a 67-yard TD pass, Prep’s Jake DeHart running 63 yards for a score, and McDevitt’s Bryce Hall snaring a 72-yard TD pass from Nick Marsillo (who passed for 291 yards). The two teams combined for an astronomical 969 yards. McDevitt led 20-14 after one. Prep led at the half 28-27 and 42-27 early in the third. Thanks to Nate Monroe’s 32-yard pick six only 19 seconds after Hall’s 72-yard TD, the Crusaders cut Prep’s lead to 42-40 at the end of three.
The last quarter was pretty much a battle for field position with each team being a little more cautious. Then McDevitt benefited from a short Rambler punt with two minutes remaining. A couple plays later, with 56 seconds on the clock, Marsillo lofted a 33-yard pass near the back of the end zone that Hall made a spectacular diving catch to give McDevitt the well-earned and hard-fought victory. Andre Robinson finished with 372 all-purpose yards for McDevitt including 180 rushing and 172 on kick returns. Robinson originally went to Penn State and then transferred to Delaware University. Hall went to the University of Virginia and now plays cornerback for the New York Jets. White went on to play at Boston College as a wide receiver. Monroe played linebacker at Bloomsburg. Fessler (who threw for 347 yards in the game) was a back-up QB at Penn State and was the holder for all place kicks. Prep’s Alex Greenwalt played WR at Colgate. McDevitt lost to Archbishop Wood in the AAA state final.
The thought crosses my mind every time the warriors walk off the football field and I see the winning players elated and the losers dejected, that game of life can be won by everybody if we just look in the right place. Although winning is bliss, sometimes more character can be built through losing than by winning. Kids for the most part are resilient and life goes on. So, win or lose, games like these are memories for sure, not only for those who played the game but also those fans and media who were in attendance.
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