Oct 10, 2020 By Joe Smeltzer for The 4 min read

HOUSTON — Those who love touchdowns wouldn’t have been pleased.

Those who love a clean game with minimal mistakes would have been appalled.

Those who love drama, however, would have been delighted. There was plenty of it in Frazier’s 7-6 win over Chartiers-Houston Friday night in a Big 7 Conference in Class A.

“It was ugly,” Frazier coach Greg Boggs said. “We fumbled the ball too much. We missed our blocks. We didn’t play our best game. But I’ll take an ugly win over a loss any day.”

“If you like tough, hard hitting, both sides did it,” Char-Houston coach Terry Fetsko said. “It was about as even as you could get. Somebody has to win, somebody has to lose. Unfortunately, it was us (who lost).”

It certainly wasn’t the most fashionable win, but nonetheless an important one for Frazier. The win puts the Commodores in a tie with Washington- who played Trinity out of conference last night — for second place in the Class 2A Century conference.

Frazier won behind the legs of Kenny Fine, who ran for 127 yards, and overcame several missed opportunities.

The Commodores (3-1, 3-2) turned the ball over four times, losing three fumbles and throwing an interception. The second fumble, in particular, could have been fatal.

After Char-Houston’s Jimmy Saddler Jr. got the scoring started early with a 34-yard punt return for a touchdown. Frazier looked like it was going to tie the game and possibly take the lead late in the first half. It appeared quarterback Dom Dorcon was headed into the end zone. Then he lost the ball, and Char-Houston’s Lane Camden pounced on it, preserving a halftime lead.

After Frazier finally did go ahead in the second half, the Commodores blew a chance to seal the deal when a red-zone fumble by Fine gave Char-Houston (2-2, 2-3) new life before Frazier’s Shaw Fordyce put the Buccaneers in the grave with his second interception, coming with 1:20 to play.

For a brief period, it looked like Frazier would be the ones left for dead. With more than 5½ minutes to play in the third quarter and the Buccaneers still nursing their lead, a Chartiers-Houston punt appeared to hit a Frazier player, which by rule, would have allowed the Bucs to go back on the ball with a chance to push their lead to two scores. The officials ruled it a dead ball, however, giving the Commodores possession. Four minutes and 23 seconds later, Fine scored the game’s only offensive touchdown from 5 yards out.

“(The call) was huge,” Fetsko said. “We felt it hit the (Frazier) player. Apparently the officials didn’t see it. You know, they’re human too, and those things happen.”

Regardless of the call, Fetsko understands that there were several other factors. Freshman kicker Anthony Romano’s missed extra point proved costly, as did a holding penalty that wiped out what would have been a 63-yard touchdown run by Saddler. The Bucs turned the ball over four times, twice on downs and twice on interceptions thrown by Terry Fetsko jr.

“When you lose a game this close, you sit back and you look at those five, six plays,” Fetsko Sr. said. “When you win it, you don’t think about them because you won. It is what it is.”

The Buccaneers will get back to it next week, and the road does not get easier at undefeated McGuffey.

Frazier has two games left, hosting Beth-Center next week. Boggs realizes that his team has a lot to work on as it approaches the end of what has been the strangest regular season in WPIAL history.

“Coming into this game, we knew we were going to be in a battle,” Boggs said. “I wish we would have played better and (executed) better, but we are trying to get better each week. There are a lot of things to improve.”