Times Leader The Pittston Area Patriots have learned the hard way about the resilience of the football team from across the river.
Wyoming Area scored the game’s final 28 points to rally from a double-digit deficit for the second straight year to pull out Friday night’s 28-20 road victory at Charley Trippi Stadium in the regular-season finale between Wyoming Valley Conference divisional champions on winning streaks.
The Warriors (8-2) ran their winning streak to seven games going into next week’s home playoff game, likely against Mid Valley, in the District 2 Class 3A semifinals. The Patriots (6-4) had a five-game winning streak broken, but will still play for the District 2 Class 5A title Friday night at Abington Heights.
Luke Kopetchny, who has been a two-way starter in four straight Wyoming Area victories, earned the 49th annual Carmelo Falcone Award as the Most Valuable Player in the six-decade old rivalry.
Kopetchny’s 63-yard fumble return 20 seconds before halftime started the comeback from a 20-0 deficit. He later ran for an insurance touchdown and passed for the clinching score during a 21-point third quarter.
“I knew we could flip the switch right there,” Kopetchny said of the fumble return. “Coming out of halftime, we had some momentum and I feel like that’s what won us the game right there.”
After being outgained 258-53 in the first half, Wyoming Area had a 122-10 advantage in total yardage in a third quarter that included a Lavell Brock recovery of a mishandled kickoff and a Maddox Fink interception on a fake punt.
By the time the quarter ended, the Warriors had their 28-20 lead.
They then held on in the fourth, stopping the Patriots on downs at the 26 with 5:45 left and the 22 with 1:26 remaining.
“There was a lot of great football played on both sides of the ball tonight,” Warriors coach Randy Spencer said. “For me, it’s about the belief and togetherness of this football team.
“We talk so much about the pride of our program, our standards, our values. We stand on our character and this team stood tall on those standards tonight.”
With Santino Capitano running the game as Pittston Area’s primary quarterback for the first time since an injury in the first half of the season, the Patriots were rolling.
Capitano was 5-for-5 passing with a touchdown and ran for two scores on the way to a 103-yard rushing effort while doing much of the work in producing the 20-0 lead.
Pittston Area scored on the game’s second play.
Capitano faked one of the team’s base plays, a jet sweep, then turned and threw in the other direction. He hit speedster Deondre Miller on a slant pass and Miller did the rest for a 62-yard touchdown and 6-0 lead.
The Patriots scored on their first three possessions, all before the Warriors had their initial first down.
After having a holding penalty wipe out a 57-yard Lucas LoPresto run, the Patriots covered 77 yards in 13 plays to score on Capitano’s two-yard run to make it 12-0 with 1:09 left in the second quarter.
The Patriots moved 59 yards in 11 plays for another Capitano two-yard touchdown. Miller added the two-point run to make it 20-0 with 6:12 left in the half.
Pittston Area threatened to add to its lead late in the half when Capitano ran 40 yards on second-and-19 and LoPresto picked up 13 more on the next play.
Instead, the entire game shifted when Drew Keating poked the ball loose and Gavin Feeney helped bring the runner to the ground, leaving the ball free for Kopetchny to take the other way for a touchdown.
“I just saw Luke come out of the pile with it,” Spencer said. “It was an absolutely a momentum-shifting play for us.
“Once we got it going from that play, we really did let go of the momentum even going into and coming out of the half.”
It was Wyoming Area that scored on its first three possessions in the second half.
The Warriors took the kickoff and went 60 yards with the help of a 25-yard Kopetchny pass to Michael McKernan on third-and-20. Two plays later, Nicholas Kondrosky scored on a 12-yard run.
Pittston Area could not handle Ava Musinski’s well-placed kickoff and Brock recovered.
The Patriots, who were hurt by 106 yards in penalties, helped the Warriors with a15-yard face mask penalty and another personal foul.
Kopetchny scored from the one-yard line and Musinski officially put the Warriors in front with the third of her four extra-point kicks.
Fink’s interception put Wyoming Area at the Pittston Area three-yard line. The Warriors moved to the 12 quickly then scored when Kopetchny’s pass into the end zone bounced off of a tightly covered Brock and wound up in the hands of Lucas Viadock for the touchdown.
Keating and Connor Grochal were each in on two stops to half one Pittston Area fourth-down threat. Grochal made one tackle for a loss and assisted Keating on another.
Brad Bohn stopped LoPresto two yards short on fourth down with an assist from Viadock, another freshman, on Pittston Area’s last offensive play. |
Citizens Voice One play triggered an enormous momentum shift Friday night.
Wyoming Area looked hapless for almost 24 minutes of football, unable to gain yardage and incapable of stopping Pittston Area as the halftime break approached.
But just before the cross-river rivals entered their locker rooms, Luke Kopetchny returned a fumble 63 yards to put Wyoming Area on the board.
That electric play sparked a run of four unanswered touchdowns as the Warriors rallied to a 28-20 victory over the Patriots at Charley Trippi Stadium.
The Warriors (8-2) trailed, 20-0, with less than a minute to go until halftime, and Pittston Area (6-4) had marched across midfield again looking to extend the lead.
That’s when Drew Keating and Gavin Feeney combined to wrap up Deondre Miller and strip the football. There was a slight pause before Kopetchny realized the play wasn’t dead, scooped it off the natural grass surface, and dashed toward the end zone.
“Some people thought he was down, but he ended up not being down. Big momentum swing for us,” Kopetchny said. “I’m not listening for (a whistle), I’m just going to play until they tell me to stop.”
Wyoming Area scored on its next three possessions and its defense and special teams made some game changing plays, holding the Patriots to zero second-half points and completing the comeback.
Kopetchny notched a hat trick, scoring one rushing and one passing touchdown in addition to the fumble return, which rightfully earned him the Carmelo Falcone Award as the annual rivalry game’s Most Valuable Player.
“I knew we could flip the switch right there,” Kopetchny said. “Coming out of halftime we had some momentum, and I feel like that’s what won us the game.”
Wyoming Area opened the second half with a 10-play, 60-yard drive on the back of Kopetchny and Nicholas Kondrosky, who paced the Warriors with 57 yards on 12 carries. Kopetchny connected with Michael Mckernan on passes of 15 and 25 yards to extend the drive, and Kondrosky capped it with a 12-yard run to cut the deficit to 20-14.
On the ensuing kickoff, Lavell Black recovered a loose ball on a blooping kick to steal another possession. Four plays later, Kopetchny took a quarterback sneak 2 yards for the game-tying touchdown.
Ava Musinski, who hit 4-of-4 extra points, knocked the PAT through to give Wyoming Area its first lead of the night, 21-20, with 5:33 left in the third quarter. It was a lead the Warriors would not relinquish.
“Once we got it going from that play, we really didn’t let go of the momentum coming in and out of the half,” Wyoming Area head coach Randy Spencer said of the fumble and 20-point comeback. “Tremendous effort tonight.”
The Warriors settled into a run-heavy offense and played ball control for the second half, just as Pittston Area did to them in the first half.
The Patriots were offered just three possessions in the second half, resulting in an interception and two turnovers on downs. The first turnover came when Lucas LoPresto stepped in at punter and threw a desperation pass on fourth-and-15, and Maddox Fink caught and returned the interception to set up a short field for the Warrior offense.
Four plays later, Kopetchny, who completed 3 of 5 passes for 52 yards, threw a bullet into the end zone and Lucas Viadock caught the tipped pass, extending Wyoming Area’s lead to the final 28-20 margin with seven seconds left in the third quarter.
Wyoming Area was afforded only three possessions in the first half – two three-and-outs and a turnover on downs.
“We really didn’t even have a gauge offensively of what we could or should do off of six or eight plays,” Spencer said. “We needed that momentum shifting play, we got it, and from there we were able to get into the flow of the game.”
Even without its leading rusher in Jude Ferentino, Pittston Area started hot. Quarterback Santino Capitano connected with Miller for a 62-yard catch-and-run to take a 6-0 lead just 1:24 into the game.
Capitano, who passed for 82 yards and ran for 104, scored the next two Pittston Area touchdowns on identical quarterback sneaks, each from 2 yards out.
The first series was a 13-play, 68-yard drive that chewed 7:36 off the first-quarter clock, giving the Patriots a 12-0 advantage with 1:12 left in the period. Both point-after tries had failed to that point.
The Patriots followed that up with an 11-play, 59-yard drive capped by Capitano’s second rushing touchdown, and Pittston Area’s sideline was buzzing after Miller’s two-point conversion run extended the lead to 20-0 midway through the second quarter.
Pittston Area tried to catch the Warriors off guard with an onside kick, but the Warriors recovered. Wyoming Area then drove into Patriot territory but turned the ball over on downs inside the red zone.
Capitano raced for a 40-yard gain late in the first half as Pittston Area looked to put a nail in the coffin, but two plays later Kopetchny’s fumble return changed the game.
“Obviously, it didn’t end the way we wanted it to end,” Pittston Area head coach Paul Russick said. “We started real strong there. The end of the second quarter and start of the third kind of imploded and it was too much for us to come back from.”
The positive outlook for Pittston Area after this gut-wrenching loss is that it had already punched its playoff ticket and clinched the Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 title ahead of Friday night.
Pittston Area will be the No. 2 seed in a two-team District 2 Class 5A playoff bracket, heading north to play Abington Heights (6-4) in the title game next week.
Wyoming Area also had its postseason fate decided, as the WVC Division 3 champions were locked into the No. 2 seed in the District 2 Class 3A playoffs. The Warriors will ride their seven-game win streak into a home game against No. 3 Mid Valley (6-4) in the four-team bracket. |
Wyoming Area 28, Pittston Area 20
SCORING SUMMARY
Wyoming Area`0`7`21`0 — 28
Pittston Area`12`8`0`0 — 20
First quarter
PA – Deondre Miller 62 pass from Santino Capitano (kick failed), 10:36
PA – Capitano 2 run (pass failed), 1:08
Second quarter
PA – Capitano 2 run (Miller run), 6:12
WA – Luke Kopetchny 63 fumble return (Ava Musinski kick), 0:20
Third quarter
WA – Nicholas Kondrosky 12 run (Musinski kick), 6:54
WA – Kopetchny 1 run (Musinski kick), 5:33
WA – Lucas Viadock (Musinski kick), 0:07 |
Team Statistics`WA`PA
First downs`10`16
Rushes-yards`31-117`45-220
Passing yards`52`95
Total yards`169`310
Passing`3-5-0`8-11-1
Sacked-yards lost`2-7`0-0
Punts-avg.`3-27.0`0-0.0
Fumbles-lost`0-0`3-2
Penalties-yards`9-73`11-106
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — WA, Kondrosky 12-57, Semaj Morris 6-29, Dominic Rosario 3-17, Gavin Feeney 1-13, Kopetchny 6-6, Team 3-minus 5. PA, Capitano 1-103, Lucas LoPresto 11-6, Bailey 9-30, Miller 5-12, Christian Cerasaro 1-1, Levi Pisano 1-minus 2, Team 1-minus 2.
PASSING — WA, Kopetchny 3-5-0-52. PA, Capitano 7-9-0-81, Miller 1-1-0-14, LoPresto 1-0-1-0.
RECEIVING — WA, Michael McKernan 2-40, Viadock 1-12. PA, Miller 3-71, LoPresto 5-24.
INTERCEPTIONS — WA, Maddox Fink 1-13. PA, None.
MISSED FIELD GOAL — None. |
