South Fayette rallies, survives upset bid
Ryan Schmider heads upfield after making a reception in South Fayette’s WPIAL Class AA football quarterfinal against South Park Friday at Peters Township.
After South Park’s Clay Smith recovered a fumble, South Fayette’s Nick Ponikvar tackled him near the goal line.
McMURRAY – South Fayette head football coach Joe Rossi has talked during the season about his players facing adversity and how they need to deal with those situations.
On Friday night, the defending state champions faced a situation they hadn’t seen since the PIAA semifinals: the Lions trailed at halftime.
But Rossi wasn’t worried. In his eyes, the Lions just needed to clean up a couple things. His halftime speech was short with no yelling involved. He proved to be correct.
Behind a big fourth quarter, South Fayette roared back to fend off South Park’s upset bid with a 39-21 victory Friday night at Peters Township, advancing to the WPIAL Class AA semifinals.
“No one doubted,” said Rossi, with a wry grin. “This was awesome. That’s a good football team. We just had to make some plays in the second half.”
The win sets up a rematch in the semifinals with Seton-La Salle, South Fayette’s favorite opponent, as Rossi said in the postgame huddle.
South Park’s defense held the Lions (11-0) in check for much of the game, forcing a couple early turnovers on downs. The Eagles (8-3) did concede the first 13 points of the game, but behind the strong running of Adam Staudt and Nick Scholle, South Park scored 21 unanswered points. Scholle gained 150 yards on 20 carries while Staudt rushed for 122 yards on 23 attempts.
“They spread us out a little bit, and they got a big offensive line that was leaning on us,” said Rossi. “Any time you get a quarterback who runs, it’s tough. We played a lot of defense in the first half because of short offensive drives.”
South Fayette helped South Park by playing almost as bad a first half as it could. There were a couple costly penalties, wasted field position, but mostly eight dropped passes in the opening 24 minutes. One of the key plays was a fumble at the 1-yard line by Nick Ponikvar on what could’ve been a 45-yard touchdown.
Wanting to make amends, Ponikvar became crucial to South Fayette’s comeback.
The junior hauled in a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter, one for 26 yards that put South Fayette ahead, 27-21, and the next for 45 yards to stretch the lead to 12 points. Ponikvar finished with six catches for 173 yards.
“In his eyes, he let the team down,” said Rossi. “He just had to believe in himself. Two tremendous catches.”
A little luck helped. The Eagles had been getting some of the bounces, but South Fayette got a big one to tie the game late in the third quarter when it trailed 21-13. Brett Brumbaugh’s pass to Dan Trimbur bounced off Trimbur’s shoulder, but straight up into the air and stayed in Trimbur’s path where he was able to reel it in for a 40-yard touchdown.
The Lions converted the two-point conversion to tie the game at 21.
Once South Fayette took the lead, its defense tightened up and began shutting down South Park’s rushing game, forcing the Eagles to pass.
Brumbaugh completed 19 of 34 passes for 382 yards. Hunter Hayes rushed for 93 yards on 16 carries with one touchdown, and J.J. Walker scored a pair of touchdowns.
South Fayette played Seton-La Salle in Week 8 and earned a 41-14 road victory.
“We’ve got a great opponent next week,” said Rossi. “It’s gonna be a fun night.”