Avonworth deals McGuffey first loss
PITTSBURGH – It’s about mid-October when the flu starts making its rounds around Southwestern Pennsylvania.
McGuffey only needed three-and-a-half quarters to be sick of Avonworth tailback Jax Miller and getting a dose of its own medicine Friday night.
Avonworth dominated in the trenches and running game from the start. Miller amassed a whopping 240 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries as Avonworth stayed perfect by defeating McGuffey, 34-20, in a nonconference battle of unbeaten teams at Lenzner Field.
“They were better than us today,” said McGuffey coach Ed Dalton. “From the beginning of the game on, we didn’t play very well. Sometimes winning makes you sloppy.”
Miller got started and didn’t stop running over and around the McGuffey (8-1) defense until he was pulled in the middle of the fourth quarter with the Antelopes in control, 34-6. Most of his damage was done in the first half, running 20 times for 166 yards as Avonworth (9-0) inflicted a painful rushing attack, similar to what the Highlanders are known to do to opponents with their flexbone offense.
Miller’s touchdown count for the night could have been four but a fumble at the McGuffey one-yard line was picked up and ran into the end zone by offensive lineman Adam McKinney. That touchdown gave Avonworth a 27-6 lead with 5:06 left in the first half.
“I just try to be as patient as much as I can,” Miller said. “This is the challenge (where) we wanted to see how good we are. It sent a statement. I try not to ever slow down, even in practice. I just want to run people over.”
The Antelopes didn’t slow down the entire night. At halftime, they were outrushing McGuffey 251-18. At the end of the third quarter, that yardage margin was widened to 318 yards on the ground to 50 yards for the Highlanders.
“He’s really good. We knew he was really good,” Dalton said of Miller. “He is Le’Veon Bell-like. He probes and then bursts. We are OK with a guy in a shoe box. He is a slider. We didn’t tackle well. There was nothing that they did that we didn’t know they weren’t going to do.”
Miller scored the opening touchdown of the game when he cut an option pitch back up the middle for an 18-yard score with 3:40 left in the first quarter. It was a lead the Antelopes wouldn’t surrender.
McGuffey answered with a five-play, 45-yard drive that ended with a Marshall Whipkey 16-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Smith in the waning minutes of the first quarter. The extra point was missed and that was as close as the Highlanders would get.
Miller also scored on an 11-yard run in the middle of the second quarter and extended the lead to 34-6 with a three-yard touchdown run with 5:13 left in the third quarter.
“The game means nothing but it means everything,” Avonworth coach Duke Johncour said. “It means a lot for playoff seeding and it was a statement win.”
A statement the Antelopes sent late in the first quarter was that McGuffey wide receiver C.J. Cole was not going to beat them. After a pair of long catches, Avonworth blanketed Cole with double coverage the rest of the night. He had three catches for 65 yards and an interception on defense.
McGuffey will host Washington (9-0) for the Class 2A Century Conference championship next Friday. Both teams are undefeated in conference play.
“We are going to look at ourselves way more critically,” Dalton said. “Our kids are mature enough. They dominated up front. They won the line of scrimmage and you win a lot of games like that. There’s nothing to do but bounce back with who we have left.”