Warriors are champs!
CHERRY TWP — Kyle Armagost rushed for three touchdowns, passed for a score and ran for three two-point conversions Friday night as unbeaten Moniteau methodically manhandled visiting Punxsutawney (3-4, 0-3) in Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference Large School high school football action.
With the win, the Warriors' seventh of the season and fourth against conference foes, came undisputed ownership of the KSAC title.
Winning the conference championship “feels great,” Armagost said after the game. “I've been waiting for this since I started playing midget football. And it feels even better because I could not have asked for a better group of guys to share it with.”
Warriors coach Jeff Campbell said his program's second KSAC title in the last four seasons was “special because we clinched it with a win over a triple-A team on our field in the mud on a night when we weren't even sure we were going to be able to play the game.”
The championship is also special, Campbell said, “because we had a lot of kids contributed to the win tonight.
“Yeah, the offense scored 45 points, but the defense, after it gave up a touchdown on the first series, bounced back and shut Punxy out the rest of the way.
“I was especially pleased with the way our sophomore linebackers, Tyler DiMaria and Stephen Haag, played,” Campbell said. “And I thought our defensive linemen played really good tonight, too.”
While the Warriors' multi-pronged offensive attack was accumulating 342 yards in total offense (218 rushing, 124 passing), Moniteau's defense held Punxsutawney to only 71 yards in offense, including a mere four rushing yards on 28 carries. Keying the effort were five sacks of Chucks' quarterback Garrett Zimmerman.
The visitors' only success came on their first possession, moving 55 yards in five plays to answer a Moniteau scoring drive.
Armagost, who rushed for 97 yards and passed for 124 stripes in the game, hit Ethan Pry for a 38-yard touchdown to cap a five-play, 52-yard Warriors' drive on the opening series and then ran in the two-point conversion to give the hosts an 8-0 lead with 10:09 left to play in the first period.
Zimmerman came right back to lead the Chucks into the end zone on the ensuing drive and capped the march with a 43-yard TD pass to Clayton Dale with 7:58 left in the quarter. The two-point conversion run failed to leave Moniteau with an 8-6 edge.
That was the score at the end of the first period. By halftime, though, the Warriors had pulled out to a 32-6 advantage.
Armagost scored on a one-yard run with 11:31 left in the second period after a short Punxsutawney punt set the Warriors up at the Chucks' 27-yard line. Armagost's second two-point conversion run gave the hosts a 16-6 advantage.
Eight minutes later, Dustin Geagan, who had a game-high 119 rushing yards on 12 carries, capped another short drive, this one covering only 25 yards, with a four-yard sprint to the end zone. Armagost's third two-point conversion run pushed the hosts' lead to 24-6.
The fourth and final Moniteau scoring drive of the opening half was an even shorter march. Joe Deal blocked a Punxsutawney punt and recovered the loose ball at the Chucks' 1-yard line to set up a QB-sneak TD by Armagost. Geagan found the end zone on the two-point conversion run to make it a 32-6 game with 2:02 left in the first half.
Geagan's second TD run of the game, a 25-yard jaunt with nine minutes left in the third period, pushed the margin to 38-6. Armagost was stopped short of the goal line on his attempt for a fourth two-point conversion.
Armagost then capped the scoring with a 25-yard sprint on a first-and-goal play with 7:52 left to play in the game..
“That last touchdown reflected the way our guys play,” Campbell said. “They just want to win. They don't feel like there's any play, no matter what the down and distance is, that they can't succeed on.
“It's going to take a team that can match our diversity and ability to score in different ways to beat us. This is a fun team to coach.”
