Oct 28, 2016 4 min read

McDONALD – Coming into the season, many felt the South Fayette football team could finally be challenged.

But despite a bump up in classification from Double-A to Quad-A and plenty of injuries during the season, the Lions just keep winning and winning.

South Fayette’s supremacy was on display again Friday night against visiting Montour, as the Lions defeated the Spartans in a 42-20 Northwest Nine Conference game.

The victory bumped the Lions’ regular-season winning streak to 47 in a row and marks an impressive fifth consecutive unbeaten regular season. South Fayette is only the third team in WPIAL history with five straight undefeated regular seasons.

More importantly, the Lions are all but assured of being one of the top two seeds for the WPIAL Class 4-A playoffs when the pairings are announced Monday.

“You don’t think about it during the season,” South Fayette head coach Joe Rossi said. “But once tonight was done, to be just one of three teams ever in the WPIAL to be able to have five seasons like that is very special. We are going to enjoy this tonight and tomorrow we are going to get right back and watch some film to get ready for an eight-team playoff.”

In a game that was a lot closer than the final score indicated, momentum changed on one big play.

With Montour trailing 28-20 early in the fourth quarter, the Spartans’ Cameron Colliers dropped a sure 76-yard touchdown pass that would have given the Spartans an opportunity to tie the game.

On the very next play, South Fayette’s Noah Plack sacked Montour quarterback Kavon Morman, forcing a punt that gave the Lions great field position.

“You just can’t make mistakes against a team like South Fayette,” Montour head coach Lou Cerro said. “That was a big momentum switch. It could have been a different football game. We could have had a chance to tie the game and instead found ourselves down a couple of scores.”

After that South Fayette running back Geovanie Love went to work.

Love, who had 85 yards rushing on 18 carries, scored on one-yard runs on back-to-back drives to give SF breathing room. Love gained 50 yards in the fourth quarter.

“They are a tough team,” Rossi said. “They defended us well. We were finally able to get the ground game going in the fourth quarter.”

It took the Lions’ offense a while to get going but quarterback Drew Saxton heated up in the second quarter, throwing a pair of touchdown passes to Plack. Saxton completed 11 of 12 attempts in the first half and hit Plack with scoring passes of 17 and 22 yards to give the Lions a 14-0 advantage.

Saxton finished with 273 yards and the two touchdowns.

It wasn’t easy though as Saxton was under pressure all night, getting sacked seven times. At one point the Lions had a first-and-goal from the three-yard line but the Spartans got to Saxton on three consecutive plays, knocking SF out of field-goal range.

However, the junior quarterback made plays with his arm when he had to, including several big third-down throws throughout the night.

“We knew this would be a tough game,” Rossi said. “This is going to be a natural rivalry. These kids play against each other in baseball and basketball and we knew they would come out and be very tough. But we settled down and did some good things offensively.”

The South Fayette special teams made an impact when Luke Meindl returned a punt 87 yards for a score to make it a 21-0 game.

Montour answered quickly, scoring in just two plays. Quarterback Kavon Morman hit Ronald Stevenson with a 57-yard pass, setting up a three-yard touchdown run from Brayden Jones to cut the SF lead to 21-7 at the half.

The Spartans opened the second half with an onside kick and turned that into a 34-yard touchdown pass from Morman to Jones that kept the game close at 20-13.

But Meindl struck again, this time returning a punt 85 yards for a touchdown, his second of the game.

“The guys in front of me blocking did all the work,” Meindl said. “They were good plays. I was able to make some cuts and capitalize off the blocks and get in the end zone.”

Montour made it a one possession game again when Morman hit Colliers with a 67-yard TD pass late in the third quarter to close to within 28-20, but that is as close as the Spartans would get.

Morman completed 8 of 17 passes for 191 yards and two touchdowns.

“I thought we played well,” Cerro said. “Bottom line is we made mistakes and they are a well-coached team that capitalizes. And you can’t give up two punt returns for touchdowns. Our special teams have been great until tonight.”