‘Angry’ Mt. Lebanon gets back on track against Hempfield

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, September 28, 2018 | 11:06 PM

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No. 5 Mt. Lebanon played a near-perfect game Friday night, and Hempfield seemingly could do little right. The result was predictable, a 37-6 Blue Devils victory on the Spartans’ home turf.

It could have been worse.

“We moved the ball, but we also had a lot of drives stopped by things that were out of our control,” Mt. Lebanon coach Mike Melnyk said. “It will give our kids something to work on this week and get better.”

Looking for their first victory in three weeks following losses to No. 4 Seneca Valley and No. 2 North Allegheny, the Blue Devils found a cure for their losing ways as Hempfield, playing the season with a roster dominated by underclassmen, was no match.

Seth Morgan threw for 219 yards and a touchdown and rushed two other scores to lead Mt. Lebanon (3-3, 3-2 Class 6A Conference).

The Blue Devils enjoyed leads of 20-0 after the first quarter, after Morgan threw a 78-yard touchdown pass to Mason Ventrone, and 30-0 at halftime.

Morgan also scored on runs of 4 and 11 yards for Mt. Lebanon.

“Our kids came out and were focused and took care of business in the first half,” Melnyk said. “We moved the ball well.”

Mt. Lebanon outgained Hempfield in total yards, 460-189, including 241-68 on the ground.

But after racing to their big lead, the Blue Devils couldn’t expand it to a 35-point spread and trigger a running clock until 7 minutes had elapsed in the fourth quarter.

“Give Hempfield credit because they played hard for four quarters. They didn’t lay down,” Melnyk said.

But the Spartans (1-5, 0-5) were never a threat.

“We’re too young, and that’s OK,” Hempfield coach Rich Bowen said. “We battled in the second half. This is a grind of a schedule, but we’re proud to play in 6A.”

Bowen said his team was hit with the flu bug this week, and a list of players missed practices. But they were dressed, and most played in the game. Several Hempfield players were forced to the sidelines with injuries, though Bowen didn’t know the extent of them.

“We got pretty banged up, so we’ll just have to see,” he said. “Mt. Lebanon came in angry (about losing). They’re becoming a pretty good football team.”

When Mt. Lebanon squeezed out Casey Sorsdal’s 37-yard field goal and took a 30-0 lead as time expired in the first half, it presented a near-impossible challenge for Hempfield.

The Spartans didn’t earn their initial first down until the 3:17 mark of the second quarter.

That field goal came after Morgan’s 18-yard completion to Shandrew Vaughn morphed into a 33-yard gain with the help of a roughing-the-passer penalty and moved the Blue Devils into Sorsdal’s range.

Mt. Lebanon wasted no time taking control from the start. Following Lucas DeCaro’s interception, the Blue Devils cashed in to start the scoring on Morgan’s 4-yard run with 7:46 left in the first quarter.

They quickly made it 14-0 on their next possession, Vaughn scoring from 2 yards, and it became 20-0 — still in the first quarter — on Morgan’s long scoring strike to Ventrone.

Morgan’s 11-yard scoring run upped the lead to 27-0.

Hempfield’s first real scoring opportunity came in the fourth quarter, but the Spartans came up empty when Nick Ross couldn’t handle a pass from Blake Remaley in traffic in the end zone.

The Spartans scored their lone touchdown on a last-second pass play involving a pair of sophomore backups, Lucas Guy firing a 14-yard pass to Roman Pellis after Mt. Lebanon had gone ahead 37-0 on a 1-yard touchdown run by Vaughn.

For Mt. Lebanon, it wasn’t a shutout, but it was close.

“This was a conference game,” Melnyk said. “Everybody’s fighting to get wins. I thought we’ve hung in with a lot of top tier teams well and we want another shot at them (in the WPIAL playoffs). So we’ve got to win games like this.”

Dave Mackall is a freelance writer.

Tags: Hempfield, Mt. lebanon