Gladiators top Falcons
REPUBLIC – It was a tough season for the Brownsville Falcons, culminated by Thursday’s 17-7 home loss to South Allegheny in an exhibition game, but first-year Falcons coach Andy Assad isn’t about to give up, give in or knuckle under the pressure. On the contrary, he’s anxious to head to the weight room to begin preparing for next season.
“We have to get a lot stronger,” Assad said. “We’ll start Monday.”
That’s just the way Assad is. Even though his team hadn’t won a game in his first season, he gave no thoughts to foregoing the 10th game, even though many teams are taking that approach.
“We definitely wanted to play,” he said. “This group of seniors has been with us three years, plus we got some younger kids some valuable minutes of varsity playing time. I don’t understand why some teams won’t play. We had to call around before we found a team that would play.”
Playing was an easy decision for South Allegheny coach Pat Risha. Playing at Brownsville was a no-brainer for the Uniontown native who coached football for several years at Clairton before moving to South Allegheny and becoming superintendent of schools.
“I played my last high school football game on this field,” Risha said of Brownsville’s Redstone Field.
When it was all said and done, the Gladiators left town with a 2-8 record in what may be Risha’s last season of coaching football. He stepped in when a new coach resigned after four days on the job.
“I don’t know yet whether I’ll be back or not,” Risha said. “It’s hard coaching and being superintendent. It’s fun being with the kids, though. I hadn’t coached since I left Clairton eight years ago. I’ll give it some time before I decide what to do.”
Assad watched his Falcons fall to 0-10 on the season, but he openly used this game to get experience for some of his younger players, including sophomore quarterback Jacob Davis, who played the whole game in place of senior starter Brian Gates.
“I wanted to get him a little bit of experience,” Assad said. “It was nothing against Brian Gates at all. He’s a good kid who has been very good to this program. Our JV team only got to play two games this year and I just wanted to get Jake some reps.”
Davis was under constant pressure from beginning to end. He was sacked eight times for 58 yards in losses, yet managed to complete four passes for 64 yards.
Brownsville junior running back Kaccieo Bass led Brownsville with 77 yards on eight carries and scored their only touchdown on a 21-yard run with 6:36 remaining in the game.
“We came out sluggish, but we played strong to the end,” Assad said. “That’s a tribute to our kids.”
South Allegheny got 90 yards on 22 carries and a touchdown from senior running back Joe Hicks and the Gladiators ran for 177 yards on 43 carries for the night. South Allegheny passed for only five yards.
Senior kicker Mike Ambrocik opened the scoring with a 29-yard field goal with 2:47 left in the first quarter. Senior quarterback Cory Wesolowski scored on a 1-yard run nine seconds before halftime to make it a 10-0 game before Hicks scored from 6 yards out with 5:40 remaining in the third quarter.
“It was a nice game for our kids,” Risha said. “That was about average for us. Brownsville always has tough kids and they showed that tonight. I think both teams played really hard, even though neither team has a very good record. That shows that football means a lot to these kids.”
And it means a lot to Assad, too. In case you hadn’t noticed.