Pulling away
Beth-Center’s Brown extends TD Club lead
Mark Marietta
Beth-Center’s Enzo Brown helped his team remain unbeaten while pushing out his lead in the Herald-Standard Touchdown Club football scoring standings to 30 points in Week Eight of the high school football season.
Brown rambled for four touchdowns on runs of 18, 12, 8 and 14 yards as the Bulldogs defeated Frazier, 48-24, to improve to 8-0 and remained in a first-place tie with California with a 5-0 mark in the Class A Tri-County South Conference.
The same game included a four-touchdown passing performance by the Commodores’ Brady Secrest to put him in a tie with California’ Brandon Meier among local players with 16. Three of those went to Brant Alekson of 14, 8 and 27 yards.
Beth-Center did have a 16-yard interception return for a touchdown against Secrest by Hunter Bobbs, giving the Bulldogs an area-leading five pick-sixes this season.
The closest player to Brown in the standings is now Waynesburg Central’s Ky-mani Sumpter who had touchdown runs of 9 and 25 yards in the Raiders’ 44-15 victory over Derry to put him at 88 points.
Just behind Sumpter in third place with 84 points is his teammate Teagan Crouse. The Waynesburg quarterback scored on touchdown runs of 9, 21 and 13 yards, and also tossed his 14 TD pass of the season with a 13-yarder to Jack Riccuiti.
The Raiders are now 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Class 3A Interstate Conference.
The highest scoring local player in Week Eight was Belle Vernon’s Chace Petrosky who rang up five touchdowns for 30 points as the Leopards upped their record to 4-0 in the Interstate and 7-1 overall with a 47-20 win over Derry.
Petrosky scored in three different ways, finding the end zone on runs of 78 and 21 yards, receptions of 48 and 30 yard from Jace Gedekoh and on an 82-yard punt return. He moved into a tie with California’s Alan Dennis for fourth place with 78 points, jumping up from 12th last week.
Lincoln Keller scored twice for Connellsville in its 49-21 loss to Latrobe on Saturday to move up one spot into sixth place with 74 points.
Marcus Evans was held scoreless in Uniontown’s loss to Chartiers Valley and is now seventh still at 72 points. DeSean Whipkey didn’t find the end zone in Beth-Center’s win and is in eighth place with 68 points.
Whipkey’s teammate Bobbs moved up one spot from 10th to ninth with 65 points after scoring 12 in the Bulldogs’ win. In addition to his interception return for a score, Bobbs booted six extra points.
Rounding out the top 10 is Meier who had a pair of two-point conversion runs in the Trojans’ 71-0 win over Jefferson-Morgan. Meier has 58 points.
Just outside the top 10 are Southmoreland’s Dawson Wolfe in 11th with 56 points and California’s Chase Shemansky, who soared from 22nd to 12th with 22 points against the Rockets and 54 on the season.
Shemansky had TD runs of 7, 13 and 37 yards and ran in two two-point conversions.
California had 10 different players score on Friday night. Joining Meier and Shemansky were Brayden Crocket with 12 points on an interception return and 10-yard run, five other players who scored one touchdown each (Weston Monticelli, Brayden Brown, Rocco Barbero, Sid Miklos and Kobe Veazey), Jayce Morton who kicked an extra point and Tyrese Black who made a tackle for a safety.
Mount Pleasant’s Aiden Roadman ran for his first three touchdowns (8, 28 and 47 yards) of the season and the Vikings needed every one of them in their 39-34 shootout win over Greensburg Salem.