Titans rebuff Colonials
WEST MIFFLIN – Maybe the pressure of being No. 1 is getting to West Mifflin. After beating Albert Gallatin, 41-12, in the first round of the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs Friday night, West Mifflin coach Ray Braszo sounded like a man who’d been defeated.
“They did a lot of good stuff against us,” Braszo said. “We struggled with it. I think we’re still thinking about last week.”
Last week, West Mifflin beat its rival and defending state champion Thomas Jefferson to win the Big Seven Conference.
Over in the other locker room, the losing coach was pleased. “We did some things well,” said Albert Gallatin coach Chuck Colborn. “We came out and attacked.”
Again, the scoreboard read: 41-12.
Why was the winning coach sad and the losing coach not?
“I just thought we’d execute a little better than we did tonight,” Braszo said. “I don’t think we executed, and I think they moved the ball more on us than we would’ve wanted them to.”
Keystone Conference teams aren’t expected to do much in the playoffs these days, and Albert Gallatin was in its first playoff game in post-merger history. The expectations were low against the No. 1 seed, and AG lived up to them by fumbling on the first play of the game. West Mifflin recovered and threw a 41-yard touchdown pass – Leon Green to tight end Tom Melani – for a 7-0 lead.
AG followed with its best drive of the game behind junior quarterback Nate Turner. But on first-and-goal from the WM 5, Turner, running the option, pitched wildly for a fumble that WM recovered. Again, WM took advantage with a scoring drive, this one capped by star tailback Dustin Dean’s 7-yard touchdown run.
By then, any hopes of an upset had been dashed, and WM went into halftime with a 21-0 lead.
“Had they not turned it over it might’ve been a lot tighter game than it was,” said Braszo, “so you have to give them credit. They came ready to play.”
Turner completed three of his first four passes for 64 yards and showed off a quick release and strong arm. But he went wild the rest of the way. After the first quarter, Turner completed only three of 13 passes for 30 yards. He did finish as AG’s leading rusher with 51 yards on 14 carries.
“He’s tough to bring down,” Braszo said. “They run a nice option scheme with him and he throws well. We kind of thought we might have problems with him.”
Turner ran one yard for a touchdown to open the second half, pulling AG to within 21-6, but the WM offensive line took over and Dean began to flash the form that got him 1,354 rushing yards in the regular season.
On his way to 192 yards and four touchdowns on 23 carries, Dean scored a pair of second-half touchdowns and WM quarterback Leon Green ran two yards for a third to push the WM lead up to 41-6.
“He’s as good as everybody thinks he is,” Colborn said of Dean. “He’s a great player. He really is. The quarterback’s a great player, too. They’re good. They’re a good football team.”
AG tacked on a touchdown with 2:51 remaining when Mark Brown scooped up a fumble and swooped 47 yards for the score.
“This program’s just getting started,” Colborn said. “The quarterback’s back and offensive line’s all back with him. There’s a future here. We’ve got to get our numbers up and I think that’ll happen now that we made the playoffs. We’ll try to springboard that. I think we’ll be OK.”