West Allegheny runs, runs, runs past ’Canes
New Castle (21) vs. West Allegheny (28)
Written: Oct 03, 2009
  By DAN IRWIN
d_irwin@ncnewsonline.com
West Allegheny head coach Bob Palko knew what he wanted to do last night against New Castle.
“We thought we could find some things to exploit them running the football,” the Indians’ mentor said.
Ultimately, “some things” pretty much turned out to be one thing: Mike Caputo. The junior running back rushed for 294 yards and two touchdowns in leading West Allegheny to a 28-21 WPIAL Class AAA Parkway Conference win at Taggart Stadium.
The Indians (3-0 in league play, 4-1 overall) ran 50 offensive plays against the Red Hurricane, and Caputo, a transfer from Blackhawk, carried the ball on 39 of them. Moreover, all but a handful were direct snaps from center.
“Mike’s a great kid, he really is,” Palko said. “He’ll be the first to give the credit to the ‘O’ line. And the backs. C.J. Revtai, he really played well too, lead blocking, and so did Troy Reaghard.”
New Castle (1-2, 3-2) forced West Allegheny to punt on its first possession, and recovered an Indians fumble inside the 5 yard line to thwart a fourth-quarter threat. Other than that, the Indians scored on each of their four other possessions and outgained the ’Canes 318 to 66 on the ground.
“They just handled us,” New Castle head coach Frank Bongivengo said. “We can say what we want, and we can do what we want, we just got handled tonight.
“We got pushed around, we got blocked down, we got kicked out ... they were a much better football team tonight.”
New Castle did have its moments, and most of them centered around quarterback Johnny Matarazzo. The sophomore completed 13-of-22 passes for 160 yards, including a game-tying 32-yard scoring strike to Jajuan Jay after the Indians had taken on 21-14 lead.
New Castle opened the game with a 70-yard scoring drive capped by Justin Fleo’s 4-yard run. West Allegheny knotted the score on Jared Buck’s 1-yard run in the second period, but the ’Canes regained the lead on the final play of the half when Matarazzo battled his way into the end zone on fourth-and-goal from the one.
Caputo capped the Indians’ opening drive of the third period with a 5-yard run, and Revtai gave West Allegheny its first lead on a 4-yarder with 1:09 left in the quarter.
Between the two TDs, New Castle drove as far as the Indians’ 19 — sparked by a 41-yard Matarazzo-to-Marcus Carter hookup on third-and-19 — but turned the ball over on downs.
The ’Canes’ final chance to grab the momentum came when Jordan Izzo fell on a fumbled Indians snap at the 5, temporarily halting a go-ahead touchdown.
New Castle advanced the ball as far as the 28 before having to punt it back, and the Indians marched 61 yards in 10 plays to put up the winning score — a 13-yard Caputo run — with 1:11 to go.
“That was a big possession,” Bongivengo said. We’d have liked to have gone down and scored and went up, but going 99 yards isn’t easy to do, either.
“We got a couple of first downs, we got it out of there, we were hoping our defense would hold and we’d get another shot at it. But that’s not the way it went.”
The Indians’ Ben Simmen sealed the win by intercepting Matarazzo with six seconds left.
“We didn’t have very many possessions, and we scored on a lot of our possessions,” Bongivengo noted. “But when they’re controlling the ball for eight, 10 minutes at a time, it makes the game difficult.
“That’s exactly what they did, that’s exactly what they wanted to do. We knew that coming in, and we never responded defensively.”
WEST ALLEGHENY NEW CASTLE
18 First downs 13
320 Yards Rushing 93
2 Yards Lost 27
318 Net Rushing 66
3 Passes Attempted 22
2 Passes Completed 13
0 Passes Intercepted 1
30 Yards Passing 160
348 Total Yards 226
1-1 Fumbles-Lost 0-0
1-30 Punts-Average 2-34.5
8-64 Penalties-Yards 5-30
WEST ALLEGHENY 0 7 14 7 — 28
NEW CASTLE 7 7 0 7 — 21
Scoring plays
NEW CASTLE — Justin Fleo, 4-yard run (Spenser Rapone kick).
WEST ALLEGHENY — Jared Buck, 1-yard run Aaron Fleck kick).
NEW CASTLE — Johnny Matarazzo, 1-yard run (Rapone kick).
WEST ALLEGHENY — Mike Caputo, 5-yard run (Fleck kick).
WEST ALLEGHENY — C.J. Revtai, 4-yard run (Fleck kick).
NEW CASTLE — Jajuan Jay, 32-yard pass from Matarazzo (Rapone kick).
WEST ALLEGHENY — Caputo, 13-yard run (Fleck kick).
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