Greyhounds complete remarkable turnaround with win at Avella
Monessen completed a remarkable one-year turnaround with a 14-6 victory at Avella on Friday night to earn the fifth and final WPIAL playoff spot out of the Tri-County South Conference.
The Greyhounds were coming off an 0-7 season in 2020 that ended with three consecutive forfeits but finished the 2021 regular season at 4-6 overall and 3-4 in the conference under first-year coach Wade Brown.
“It feels great coming from where the program was last year,” Brown said. “It’s really big for us because we have a really young team. The experience these guys are going to get through this season and in the first round of the playoffs, win or lose, will be great for the kids. They can see what it’s like to play in the playoffs.”
The game was tied after one quarter before Monessen’s Daniel Dozer opened the scoring with a 3-yard touchdown run and added the two-point conversion for an 8-0 lead in the second quarter.
The Eagles (1-5, 1-8), who would’ve claimed the playoff berth with a win, scored later in the second quarter on an 18-yard touchdown pass by K.J. Rush to Noah Markle but Monessen stopped the 2-point conversion run and held an 8-6 halftime advantage.
“We played a lot of close games this year and we didn’t finish them,” Brown said. “We told them at halftime this was another opportunity to finish the game, get a win and make the playoffs.”
Both offenses had trouble moving the ball on the grass field that was dampened by a steady rain during the day.
“We knew it was going to be a muddy field and we thought we would have to run the ball and try to move them up front to get the win,” Brown said.
The Greyhounds extended their lead to 14-6 on Daevon Burke’s 4-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter as their defense threw a shutout in the second half to secure the victory.
“Defense wins championships,” Dozier said. “Our offensive line blocked good but our defense played better than our offense.”
Dozier said his team was aware what was at stake and was up to the challenge.
“We knew we needed to win,” he said. “The coaches did a good job and we played with each other and did everything we needed to do. We fought real hard and worked real hard for this spot.”
The WPIAL playoff pairings were released Saturday evening with Monessen drawing the No. 15 seed. The Greyhounds will play No. 2 Cornell at West Allegheny at 7 p.m. on Friday.
(Westley Burchianti contributed to this story.)