Guesman stars as AG rallies past Connellsville
CONNELLSVILLE – Tee Guesman didn’t let an early mistake bother him.
The Albert Gallatin senior, whose early fumble led to a Connellsville touchdown, exploded for a pair of long scoring runs in the second half to propel the Colonials to a 28-14 victory in a matchup of independent teams at Falcon Stadium.
Guesman had 13 carries for 167 yards as AG rolled up 358 yards on the ground in improving to 3-0 and defeating their Fayette County rival for the second year in a row after dropping the first 13 games in the series.
Albert Gallatin out-scored the Falcons 21-0 in the second half after falling behind 14-7.
“We were down against Greensburg (Salem) early, too, but this is a scrappy group,” Colonials head coach Drew Dindl said. “They’ve been a fun group to coach this year. They just keep fighting. I can’t say enough about them. Hat’s off to them for responding when we faced some adversity.
“We just beat a really good football team today. They’re tough and physical. They beat Latrobe. We’re off to a nice 3-0 start and the kids are having fun with it. We’ve just got to keep focusing on week to week and doing what we do.”
What the Colonials do is run the football and run it well.
Adam Pegg followed Guesman with 10 carries for 90 yards, Roman Smith had 10 attempts for 44 yards and quarterback Bronx Jamison ran nine times for 36 yards and a touchdown.
“We’re just running our stuff so well right now,” Dindl said. “They all know their number could get called at any time and to step up and be ready.”
Guesman’s fumble, which was recovered by Jayden Mickens at the AG 40, came on the third play from scrimmage and Connellsville scored seven plays later on Mickens’ 2-yard run with Hunter Brown booting through the first of his two extra points for a 7-0 lead.
Albert Gallatin answered with a mammoth touchdown drive. The Colonials marched 80 yards in 15 plays, chewing up 9:11 off the clock although they didn’t end it with a running play. On second and four from the Falcons 18 Jamison crossed up Connellsville’s defense with a pass to a wide open Pegg for the score and Sam Evans, who was four for four on extra points, added the PAT to tie it at 7-7.
“That was a good call,” Dindl said. “They were getting a little bit too aggressive there and we took advantage of it.”
The Falcons (1-2) came right back with an eight-play, 69-yard scoring drive that featured completions by Caden Matthews of 11 yards to Geno Farrell and 20 yards to Christian Thomas and runs of 11 yards and 31 yards by Mickens, the last one going for a touchdown to put the hosts back on top, 14-7.
Mickens wound up with 13 carries for 104 yards and scored both Connellsville touchdowns.
Albert Gallatin moved the sticks four times on its next possession but the Falcons’ defense stopped the Colonials on downs.
With just 49 seconds left in the half and at its own 12, Connellsville still attacked on offense and it almost paid off. Runs of 13 and 10 yards by Matthews and his 32-yard completion to Rocco Farrell got the Falcons to the AG 33 but time ran out before they could run another play.
Connellsville received the ball to start the second half but fumbled on the second play with Smith recovering for the Colonials at the AG 37.
Albert Gallatin’s offense covered that in three chunk plays with Guesman running for 19 yards, Pegg bursting for 29 and then Jamison scoring on a 15-yard keeper to even the score at 14-14.
The Falcons’ next possession got off the a good start with a 10-yard pass by Matthews to Geno Farrell and a 26-yard run by Wyatt Hall to the AG 19, but the next four plays lost three yards and a fourth-down incompletion gave the ball back to Albert Gallatin.
Connellsville’s defense stood tall with a three-and-out this time but the Falcons fumbled Evans’ punt with the Colonials’ John Cerny recovering at the AG 41.
The Colonials’ offense, suddenly given new life, seized the opportunity by handing the ball to Guesman twice and on the second play he exploded for a 56-yard touchdown to put Albert Gallatin in front, 21-14.
After the teams exchanged punts, Connellsville, sparked by Wyatt Hall’s 27-yard run, drove to the AG 1 but an offsides call on the next third-down play pushed the Falcons back to the 6 and the Albert Gallatin defense forced a run for a loss and an incomplete pass to thwart the threat.
Jace McClean, one of Connellsville’s three head coaches along with Mick Lilley and Chad Lembo, lamented his team’s miscues.
“We shot ourselves in the foot too many times,” McClean said. “A couple key penalties, and the turnover battle, we were talking about it all week, especially against the Wing-T. We wanted to get them to put the ball on the ground and they did once. But then in the second half it was the exact opposite and we gave it away a couple times at key times that killed our momentum and AG rolled with it.”
The Colonials all but sealed the victory from there with an impressive 91-yard drive capped by Guesman’s 48-yard touchdown run to give the visitors a 28-14 lead with 2:16 left.
“I love the kid to death. He’s one of my four-year players,” Dindl said of Guesman. “He’s just a special kid to me. He’s matured so much this year. Maybe last year a fumble like that might have affected him more but tonight he didn’t get discouraged by it and he ended up having a heck of a game tonight.”
McClean pointed out missed tackles as a factor in several of AG’s long runs.
“Our tackling has to improve,” McClean said. “We’ve been working on that all summer long into the fall but we struggled there tonight. We missed a couple big tackles and that led to some big plays by them.
“We had a few missed assignments, too. When you play a Wing-T everybody has a job to do. If you get all 11 guys to do their job you’ll be fine. But it just takes one to mess up and then there’s a big play. That’s what happened a few times and they took advantage of it.”
Dindl pointed out some halftime adjustments his team made as key to their strong second half.
“We just discussed what they were doing defensively,” Dindl said..” They did a nice job planning for us, moving some linebackers around and things like that. We checked with our coaches up top to see what was going on and how to counter it. And give the kids credit also. They made good adjustments on their own.
“Our defense, too. They fixed some things at halftime and the defense responded in the second half. Coach (Jeff) Rush, I give him credit. Zack (Dillow) and I worry about the offense a good bit but Jeff, Danny (Morgan) and Dylan (Rush) get the defense going and they did a good job getting us the ball back in the second half when we needed it.”
Connellsville’s offense produced 208 yards on the ground with Hall running six times for 60 yards. Matthews completed 7 of 17 passes for 82 yards.
When asked what the coaches told their team after the game, McClean said, To keep their heads up. We’ve still got seven games left. It was a tough game. It was a battle, back and forth. We made mistakes but I will say the kids played hard.”