Delone Catholic Upends Belmont late to advance to the Quarterfinals
Tagged under: District 12, District 3, News, pfn, Playoffs
Anthony Franklin | November 16, 2024
The late great sports writer for the Philadelphia News and founder/creator of the website TedSilary.com coined a famous local quote for Public League teams “Only in the Pub” for wild things that occurred before, during or after games. Today what was to be a 1pm kickoff turned into a 2:08 kickoff due to a referee assignment issue. Nonetheless once the issue was rectified we had a ballgame on our hands. Delone wasted no time asserting their will driving down field to begin the game and capping it off with a 26 yard TD pass from QB Zach Staub to TE Kaden Hix to take an early 7-0 lead in the first quarter. Belmont would respond with their own nice drive capped by an QB run by Naissy Harrison 7 yards into the endzone. The Tigers would convert the 2-point conversion to take an 8-7 lead. Delone would respond driving the length of the field and finish it with another touchdown pass from Zach this time an 10 yard strike to Brayden Clabaugh to retake the lead at 14-8. Belmont’s offense would stall and Zach would get his 3rd TD pass of the half when he found Kaden once again this time for 60 yards to extend the lead to 20-8 at the half.
The second half both teams would go back and forth playing stellar defense before Belmont broke through with a 26 yard TD pass from Nasisy Harrison to Quameer Alexander to cut the lead to 20-16 with 2:58 left in the 3rd quarter. It looked for a moment that Belmont may come back and win as they drove the field and scored on a 38 yard run from Nasisy to retake the lead 22-20 with 4:58 left in the 4th quarter. Delone would have one final chance and with 0:18 remaining QB Zach Staub tossed his 4th touchdown pass of the afternoon to Braden Smith to retake the lead and ultimately the win as they got a big road win 28-22 over Belmont.
The win marked the first PIAA playoff win for Delone in school history and they move on to play the District 4 champion Muncy in the Quarterfinals.
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