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Penn Cambria Heads to the 3A Semis with Hard Fought Win Over Sharon

Tagged under: District 10, District 6, Gameday Hub, News, pfn, Playoffs

| November 22, 2025

The 12-7 victory by Penn Cambria over Sharon at Al Jacks Field in Clarion came down to twenty-three seconds near the end of the first half.  Yes, just twenty-three measly seconds.  

With the score knotted at zero, and 5:33 left in the first half, the P.C. Panthers embarked on a 63-yard drive that took 4 minutes and 11 plays.  The possession ended when Brady Jones hit Grant Gides with a 9-yard touchdown pass with 1:36 remaining.  


Then on Sharon’s first play after the kickoff, Cambria’s Colin Gongloff intercepted a pass at the Sharon Tiger 22 and rumbled inside the 15 where he was hit and fumbled.  The ball bounced up and Evan Latterner grabbed it at the ten and with his momentum taking him that way, raced into the endzone.  It was Penn Cambria’s second and last score of the night, twenty-three seconds after the Panther offense had scored, the defense scored.


When told the game was won in those twenty-three seconds, Penn Cambria’s head coach, Jason Grassi, was speechless.  But then he smiled and said, “I don’t know, that’s what we do.  We take advantage of the mistakes of the other teams.”  

As it turned out, those two scores were all Penn Cambria needed as their defense pretty much shut the door, except for one Sharon second half drive.  And as good as the Panther played defense, their counterpart cats, the Tigers, played just as well, limiting Penn Cambria to 11 first downs, 161 total yards, and only two plays of ten yards or better.  (A 15-yard pass and a 10-yard run.) 

The Penn Cambria players were also playing last night’s game with a chip on their shoulders.  They were ticked off.  They were a determined bunch that were not going to be denied.  Here is what quarterback Brady Jones said, “We’re tired of the disrespect, nobody in the paper picked us.  Nobody believed in us.”  His teammate, Corbin Vinglish, echoed those sentiments by stating, “No one has any faith in us except for our community and we just roll with it.”  Vinglish led all rushers with 102 yards on 29 tough, bruising carries.

The game was a hard-hitting, defensive slobberknocker with the outcome in doubt until the end.  Sharon made a game of it by switching quarterbacks for the second half.  That seemed to at least momentarily spark the Tiger offense as they scored late in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 12-7.  The touchdown came on Terrian White’s 2-yard plunge to cap a 97-yard, 7-play drive.  During that drive, the backup quarterback, Ghafir Lampkins, completed all four of his passes for 95 yards.  

But on Sharon’s last two possessions, Penn Cambria’s defense closed the door and the Panther offense did enough to take a lot of valuable time off the clock.  Coach Grassi had this to say about that, “We struggled offensively, kudos to them (Sharon).  After they scored, we had to get something going offensively.  Happy our offense did some small stuff there (to keep drives going).”  “We responded,” stated Jones.  

Although they did not score, Penn Cambria possessed the ball for almost 11 of the last 14 minutes of the game.  They came real close in scoring with less than a minute to go when, on 4th down from the six, Jones scrambled and reached the ball into the endzone but his knee was ruled down at the two which resulted in him being a yard short of a first down.  

Sharon was out of timeouts and advanced the ball to their 39 before a sack and a penalty set them back.  Then on a short pass, the receiver could not get out of bounds in time as the clock wound itself down to zero. 

“So proud of these kids and their effort tonight,” said Coach Grassi.  Jones chimed in with, “the whole game was gritty, it wasn’t pretty but those two scores made us believe.”  Vinglish added, “in high school football it’s a momentum game.  When we scored we carried it.” 

Sharon outgained Penn Cambria 273 yards to 161 and lost a chance to put points on the board early in the second quarter.  That was when a bad snap on a field goal try ended in a loss of 3 yards when the holder was tackled trying to run.  But as Protime mentioned in his game preview, turnovers and momentum would be the keys to deciding who would win this particular game.  And those belonged to the Panthers of Penn Cambria.

Sharon ends a successful year with a 9-4 record, while Penn Cambria goes to 12-2 and will await the winner of the Avonworth-Imani game in the state 3A semifinals next week at a site to be determined.  Avonworth defeated Penn Cambria 16-6 last year in the semis in a game where the Panthers held a slim halftime lead.  

Score by Quarters:

Sharon – 0 0 7 0 – 7

Penn Cambria – 0 12 0 0 – 12

 

Scoring Summary:

First Quarter:

NONE

Second Quarter:

PC – Grant Gides 9-yard pass from Brady Jones, (PAT no good), 1:36

PC – Evan Latterner 10-yard run with fumble, (2-point conversion pass failed), 1:13

Third Quarter:

S – Terrain White 2-yard run, (Yousef Kanan PAT), 2:04

Fourth Quarter:

NONE

 

Individual Stats:

Rushing: Sharon – Terrain White 13-53; Ghafir Lampkins 8-4; Ethan Engelmore 6-2; Bishop Root 2-16; Team 1-(6). Totals: 30-69.  Penn Cambria – Corbin Vinglish 29-102; Brady Jones 11-15; Team 1-(4). Totals: 41-113.  

Passing: Sharon – Ethan Engelmore 6-13, 59 yards, 2 interceptions; Ghafir Lampkins 8-10, 145 yards. Totals: 14-23, 204 yards, 2 interceptions.  Penn Cambria – Brady Jones 8-16, 48 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception.

Receiving: Sharon – Kare’mez Norris 7-111; Bishop Root 3-40; Rakeem Hughes 2-38; Cyleim Smith 1-8; Terrian White 1-7. Totals: 14-204.  Penn Cambria – Corbin Vinglish 3-25; Grant Gides 2-15, 1 touchdown; Blake Lilly 2-(1); Nate Mack 1-9. Totals: 8-48, 1 touchdown.

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