Clairton Clobbers Greenville – Advances To State Final
Tagged under: District 10, District 7, Game Photos-Videos, Gameday Hub, News, pfn, Playoffs
Shane Lux | November 29, 2025
Ellwood City – For the first time since 2016, the Clairton Bears are heading to the state championship game.
It hadn’t been since 2016, but the Bears are back. Not only are they back, but they completely dismantled District 10 champion Greenville in every facet, dominating the Trojans 57-0.
A week ago, Clairton didn’t play its best game of the season during an 8-6 victory over Laurel for the WPIAL Title. Friday night at Ellwood City’s Helling Stadium, they might have played their best.
Watching them Friday night makes one wonder how they got held to a single touchdown a week ago.
Ironically, for Clairton, some of the mistakes that they made against the Spartans showed up early. But disappeared quickly as the Bears rolled to an easy victory.
“We were watching film, and we thought our speed on offense, if we could get to the edge, that we would be able to do some big things,” said Clairton head coach Wayne Wade. “We were to spread people out and get our guys in space. Last week, we scored a couple of touchdowns that were called back. That made it a slow game for us. The defense played well again tonight, as it did last week, when we gave up only 94 total yards. We say it all the time that defense wins championships.”
On the game’s initial snap, Deon Lovelace-Pompey ran 43 yards to the Greenville 15-yard line, where he fumbled, resulting in Greenville taking over at their 13.
The Trojans then connected on a 29-yard pass from Cael Thurber to Keith Covert on third down, and it looked like perhaps we could be in for a game.
That would never happen. Not even close.
After Clairton had a touchdown negated by a holding penalty, they soon converted a 3rd-and-18 on a 41-yard screen pass from Jeff Thompson to Michael Ruffing, before Lovelace-Pompey scored on a 1-yard run at the quarter’s mid-point, and the rout was on.
Brandon Murphy then returned his first of two punt return touchdowns, as he recovered a muff by Donte Wright and took it back 81 yards for a touchdown.
“Our speed showed early, our speed against them from the first play with Deon,” Wade said. “If he doesn’t fumble, we probably go in within the next two plays. It was our team speed that won it tonight.”
The Bears capped an 8-play 59-yard drive with Lovelace-Pompey scoring his second touchdown of the quarter with a 6-yard run, pushing the lead to 22-0 after a quarter.
Greenville was then able to threaten for the only time in the contest as they picked up a trio of first downs before Donte Wright intercepted Cael Thurber and returned it to the Bears’ 6-yard line.
Being backed up hardly mattered as Clairton easily moved down the field, driving 94 yards in five plays with Wright capping the drive with a 26-yard touchdown run. Jeff Thompson had a 35-yard completion to Michael Ruffing on the series.
Deon Lovelace-Pompey ran for a game-high 109 yards on nine carries with a pair of touchdowns, while Wright added 55 yards on five carries, with Ruffing chipping in with 41 yards.
“It means everything,” Wright said. “Growing up, we were watching the boys win and succeed all the time. We always wanted it to be us. Now we’re finally here as seniors. We’re doing it right, we’re going hard at practice and getting what we’ve worked hard for. When you have Brandon, Michael, Deon, and Jeff coming in, it’s great. Anybody can score, anybody can get open, we have a team full of players.”
Lovelace-Pompey then intercepted a pass, immediately leading to Thompson’s 28-yard touchdown pass to Taris Wooding.
Clairton nearly extended the lead on their next possession as Wooding caught a 36-yard pass from Thompson, but lost the Bears’ second fumble of the half at the Trojans’ 12-yard line.
However, Rhejon Williams then came up with the third Clairton interception of the half at the Greenville 48-yard line, where Thompson ran 44 yards and eventually capped the drive with an 8-yard touchdown with nine seconds left in the half.
“Our secondary played a lot better tonight,” said Wade. “The last few weeks, we had been getting a lot of pass interference calls, so we cleaned up the technique on that this week.”
Jeff Thompson completed 6-of-8 passes for 170 yards and a touchdown, while adding 68 rushing yards and a score.
Clairton led 43-0 at halftime.
With the mercy clock rolling, Clairton added a pair of second-half scores as they flipped a punt return from Murphy to Wright back to Murphy for a 75-yard touchdown return early in the third stanza.
Michael Ruffing then capped the evening’s scoring with a 3-yard run with 3:43 to play in the third quarter.
Clairton now advances to the state championship, where they’ll meet District 6 champion Bishop Guilfoyle, a 35-0 winner of Belmont Charter, the District 12 champion.
“As a head coach, I’ve been there twice, and this has beaten us twice,” concluded Wade. “We’re going to be ready. If we continue to play defense like this. Then we should be champions come Thursday afternoon.”
Kickoff between the two will be Thursday, December 4th, at 1 pm at Cumberland Valley’s Chapman Field.
The Marauders and Bears have played twice in the state final in 2014 and 2016, with Bishop Guilfoyle winning both games, 19-18 and 17-0.
Clairton is looking for its first state title since 2012.
Game Highlights:
Clairton 57 Greenville 0
Score by Quarters
Greenville – 0 0 0 0 – 0
Clairton – 22 21 14 0 – 57
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
C – Deon Lovelace-Pompey 1 yd run, (Donte Wright rush), 5:59 – 7-57
C – Brandon Murphy 81 yd punt return, (Michael Ruffing rush), 4:06
C – Lovelace-Pompey 6 yd run, (rush failed), 0:09 – 8-59
Second Quarter
C – Wright 26 yd run, (Murphy from Jeff Thompson), 6:39 – 5-94
C – Taris Wooding 28 yd pass from Thompson, (kick failed), 5:02 – 1-28
C – Thompson 8 yd run, (Rhejon Williams pat), 0:09 – 3-48
Third Quarter
C – Murphy 75 yd punt return, (Williams pat), 9:11
C – Ruffing 3 yd run, (Williams pat), 3:43 – 4-33
Individual Stats
Rushing: G – Rudy Gentile 15-28, Swayze Walker 1-4, Justin Schell 1-4, Kaysom Mataria 4-1, Cael Thurber 7-(-22). Totals: 28-15. C – Lovelace-Pompey 9-109, Thompson 4-68, Wright 5-55, Ruffing 7-41, Tyr Armstrong 1-2, Robert Scott 2-(-3), Team 2-(-10). Totals: 30-262.
Receiving: G – Schell 6-21, Keith Covert 2-31. C – Ruffing 2-76, Woodling 2-64, Lovelace-Pompey 2-30, Jaece Booker 1-(-1).
Passing: G – Thurber 8-for-22, 52 yards, 3 INT. C – Thompson 6-for-8, 170 yards, 1 TD, Ruffing 1-for-1, (-1) yard.
Interceptions: C – Wright, Williams, Lovelace-Pompey.
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