It may be an overused sports term, but it’s the most apt description of what happened to the Williamstown High School football team in the Class A state championship game at Wheeling Island Stadium on Saturday night.
The scoreboard showed that Wheeling Central won its third straight state championship with a 14-7 win over the Yellowjackets in a battle of 13-0 teams.
But that doesn’t begin to tell the story of this nailbiting, down-to-the-wire game which easily qualified as the best of the Super Six weekend.
It took everything Wheeling Central had to hold of Williamstown and the Maroon Knights may even have gotten a little help on a questionable call in the waning minutes.
Following a scoreless first quarter, Wheeling Central lit up the scoreboard first with 9:53 left in the half when Chris Martin scored from 5 yards out and Michael Duplaga successfully booted the extra point.
Wheeling had a prime opportunity to go up by two scores when it drove to the Williamstown 12 midway in the second quarter, but came up empty after missing a field goal.
Williamstown’s final possession of the half began at the Yellowjacket 20 with just 1:33 to go. Since Williamstown would get the ball to start the second half, it appeared the Jackets would be content to be down 7-0 and run out the clock.
But when Brandon Roberts connected with Ross Elder on a 37-yard pass to the Central 20, Williamstown went into scoring mode.
After an incomplete pass, Roberts tried Elder again and he made an incredible catch in the corner of the end zone, taking the ball away from a Central defender for a Williamstown touchdown with just 3.5 seconds to play. When Russell Palm booted the extra point, the Yellowjackets had tied the game and grabbed the momentum.
The second half was a hard-hitting battle that saw neither team able to consistently move the ball.
But Central finally did just that, putting together an 11-play, 62-yard drive and scoring the game-winning touchdown with 1:59 to go on a 14-yard run by Brandon Tucker, who Williamstown held to 86 yards on 25 carries.
The Yellowjackets would have to run their two-minute offense and they did, but on second down, Roberts pitched the ball to Greg Davis for what appeared to be an incomplete pass. But the official called it a lateral and when Wheeling Central’s Dan Gordon fell on the ball, it belonged to Central.
But that wasn’t Williamstown’s last shot. The Yellowjackets got the ball back with a minute to go and moved it to the Wheeling Central 47 on a 21-yard pass from Roberts to Benji Powers and a Wheeling Central personal foul for a late hit.
But Williamstown’s championship dream ended when Wheeling Central’s Alex Peluchette intercepted a Roberts pass with 39 seconds to play.
Williamstown coach Terry Smith praised his team’s effort, but refused to take any solace from a close loss.
“We didn’t come up here to look pretty,’’ he said. “We came up here to win.’’
Smith refused to blame the loss on the official who called the lateral.
“I though it was a forward pass. He called it a lateral. He was right there and he was adamant about it. What can you do?’’
Smith praised the performance of Elder - who received the Samuel A. Mumley Memorial Award for being Williamstown’s Most Valuable Player. He had three catches for 66 yards while being double-teamed the entire game. Roberts was six-of-15 for 91 yards. Greg Davis had 39 yards rushing and Brad Montgomery 38.
Wheeling Central got 54 yards rushing from Martin. Peluchette completed just three of 10 passes for 60 yards.
“We started 11 seniors on defense,’’ Smith said. “We’ve a long way to come back.’’
Untitled Document
Super Six
c/o Bernie Dolan - Director
1976 Park View Road
Wheeling, WV 26003
