South Park players spent Saturday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium competing for a title in a sport that many of them have played since they were small children.
And while they were playing for a WPIAL football championship, the strategy, just as it has been all season, was similar to a game many of them played as kids.
Keep away.
Run play after run play after run play. Long sustained drives. Stout defense.
That’s how South Park ended a 19-year championship drought Saturday.
Eric Doerue ran for 149 yards and two touchdowns on 34 carries and No. 2 South Park held No. 1 Seton LaSalle to a season low in points on its way to a 21-14 win in the WPIAL Class 2A championship.
It’s WPIAL title No. 3 for South Park (12-1), which won its previous titles in 1997 and 2005. Brian Abbey, the team’s second-year head coach, has been a part of all three championship teams. He was a freshman on the team in 1997 and an assistant coach in 2005. Seton LaSalle (11-1) was trying to win its first title since 2004.
South Park, behind Doerue and a veteran offensive line, dominated possession. The Eagles possessed the ball for 36 minutes, 20 seconds, while Seton LaSalle had it for only 11:40. Each of South Park’s three touchdown drives were at least 10 plays and lasted 7:26, 5:57 and 7:07. The Eagles, who completed only two passes in the game, ran for 217 yards on 53 carries.
“That’s South Park football. That’s exactly what it is,” Abbey said. “We want to grind it out. It’s November. It’s snowing. We’ve talked about it all week. We were out there in the monsoon the other day. We were out there in the snow. We went through walk through last night in the rain. I’m sure a lot of other people may have been inside, but we were outside. And that’s who they are. They’re tough kids.”
South Park was dominant through three quarters as it built a 21-7 lead, but credit Seton LaSalle for showing a lot of fight in the final quarter as the Rebels put forth a rally. Mike Pastirik connected with Richard Littlejohn for a 51-yard touchdown less than a minute into the fourth quarter that cut the Rebels’ deficit to 21-14.
“If you’re down 14 against South Park, I don’t care who you are, it’s a hard thing to come back,” Seton LaSalle coach Tim Storino said. “But you saw what happened and you saw the fight in these boys. I’m surely proud of them. Play that game next week on a turf field with no rain, we can use our speed a little bit.”
Hoping for one final possession late in the game, Seton LaSalle forced South Park into a fourth-and-2 from its own 45 with 1:53 left. South Park went for it and converted to improve to 4 for 4 on fourth-down conversions in the game, only it wasn’t Doerue, but Kenyan Brown whose tough 8-yard run gave the Eagles the first down that allowed them to put the game on ice.
“Going into the timeout, Eric said, ‘Give the ball to Kenyon. Let’s go,’” Abbey recalled. “Sometimes you just listen to your guys. That’s how much trust we have in those guys.”
South Park coaches definitely have a lot of trust in Doerue, the school’s all-time leading rusher who upped his career total to 4,802 yards. It was another heavy workload for Doerue, who had 26 carries for 193 yards in the quarterfinals and 26 carries for 138 yards in the semifinals.
“It’s a great feeling, his trust in me and his trust in the guys up front,” Doerue said. “When I get the ball in my hands, I’ve got to make a play.”
Doerue made quite a few plays Saturday. And he started doing it on South Park’s first possession. Doerue’s 6-yard touchdown run capped a 12-play, 67-yard drive that ate up 7:26 and gave South Park a 6-0 lead with 2:11 left in the opening quarter.
Doerue didn’t score a touchdown on South Park’s second drive, but he did add the 2-point run following Robert Lenzi’s 1-yard touchdown run with 8:03 left in the second quarter. The 10-play, 47-yard drive chewed up 5:57 and extended the South Park lead to 14-0.
South Park did a terrific job defensively bottling up Seton LaSalle receiver Khalil Taylor, who is considered to be among the top sophomores in the country and came into the game with a team-best 22 touchdowns. Taylor had five catches for minus-1 yard and also returned a punt for 17 yards. But his only splash play in the game came on a 32-yard touchdown run that pulled Seton LaSalle within 14-7 with 1:22 left in the first half.
“It’s basically just knowing where he is,” Abbey said, “and just making sure we’re not leaving him alone because he’s a special talent. Anytime the ball is in his hands, big things can happen. So we definitely took care of business there of keeping everything in front of us.”
After South Park held a 16:49-7:11 edge in time of possession in the first half, it got even more lopsided in the second half. Doerue’s 8-yard touchdown with 4:46 left in the third capped a 11-play, 69-yard drive that took 7:07 off the clock.
“We were able to grind it out,” said Abbey. “We’re very confident in these guys to convert third and fourth and short. It worked out in our favor tonight. These guys got it done, being able to control the football. So I’m very proud of them.”
While they didn’t show up in the box score, South Park’s veteran line consisting of senior tackles Parker Cunningham and Troy Cunningham, senior guards Ian Hanna and Kaden Lemley, and senior center Antonio Loukas made a huge impact in the game as they created holes for the South Park ball carriers.
The championship moment was particularly special for the Cunninghams, who are twins. Parker is a James Madison recruit and Troy has 16 Division I offers.
“It’s a great feeling,” Parker Cunningham said. “I think every day since last season ended, me and Troy worked as hard as we could. We talked all the time about what it would mean to get here and win the WPIAL. We worked so hard and now that we’re able to do it, it feels great to be able to do it with him.”
Now the two will set their sights on winning the school’s third PIAA title. The Eagles will play their first PIAA game in 19 years when they take on the Cambria Heights-Central Clarion winner in next week’s semifinals. Those teams met in a quarterfinal game Saturday night.
“It means everything to this program,” Abbey said of winning the WPIAL title. “We talked last night at our dinner. Just being able to have alumni back that have been there and done that to talk to these guys. I told them last night, ‘My heart is full being a South Park Eagle.’ Now they’re cementing their legacy, and it’s something that can never been taken away from these guys.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.