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Quarterback Julian Dugger shows his versatility as No. 1 Penn Hills holds off No. 2 Pine-Richland

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Saturday, September 9, 2023 | 12:47 AM

It’s no exaggeration when Penn Hills quarterback Julian Dugger says he did everything he could to win this one.

After Dugger passed for two touchdowns, rushed for two more and served as the team’s punter, he joined the defense in the final seconds when the Indians were shorthanded in the secondary, even though he’s usually a one-way player.

Penn Hills needed his all, because Pine-Richland wouldn’t go away.

“I’ll do anything for my team to win,” Dugger said. “I don’t know what I looked like (on defense). I probably looked sorry, but as long as my team got the win.”

Top-ranked Penn Hills ultimately made a last-second defensive stop Friday night and defeated No. 2 Pine-Richland, 26-20, in a marathon Northeast Conference opener that lasted more than three hours. The win gave the Indians (3-0, 1-0) an early edge over the Rams (1-2, 0-1) in the conference standings.

Dugger, a Pitt commit, rushed for 150 yards, including a 60-yard touchdown run that saw him outrun the defense. He also had a 4-yard touchdown run, and dazzled with a go-ahead touchdown pass on fourth down just before halftime.

The 15-yarder to Martel Palmer gave the Indians an 18-17 lead they never lost.

“This is Julian’s team,” Penn Hills coach Charles Morris said. “He’s the leader of the team. A lot of other guys contribute to the leadership … but everyone knows everything goes through No. 2.”

Penn Hills teammate Amir Key added 127 yards rushing, and Pine-Richland running back Ethan Pillar had 127 yards on 32 carries in a game that was tight throughout.

Both teams took chances, too.

Combined, they successfully converted six fourth downs, including five by Pine-Richland, which pulled off a well-timed fake punt in the second half.

“This is a game you want to be in, playing like that,” Pine-Richland coach Jon LeDonne said. “We just came out on the wrong end of it.”

With one-tenth of a second left, Pine-Richland still had life and one final offensive play from Penn Hills’ 25-yard line. Rams quarterback Kanan Huffman had converted two fourth-down passes just to get into that position, but their hopes were dashed when Penn Hills’ D’Andre Cochran knocked down a pass in the end zone.

Cochran had picked off Huffman earlier in the fourth to end another Pine-Richland drive. The Rams had four turnovers in all, with two interceptions and two lost fumbles.

“We talked all week about how we had turnovers the last two weeks,” LeDonne said, “and you just can’t have them in big games like this.”

Neither team played flawless football. Dugger was intercepted once, and the teams combined for 16 penalties.

Penn Hills was flagged 10 times.

For that reason, Morris wasn’t ready to declare his Indians as WPIAL favorites, even if they defeated the reigning state champs.

“Championship teams can’t keep having self-inflicted wounds,” Morris said. “We can’t be getting penalized. We’ve got to clean that up, and then we can start having more of that conversation.”

Still, a dynamic athlete at quarterback like Dugger certainly boosts their chances.

The 6-foot-3, 205-pound senior completed only 6 of 21 passes for 68 yards, but still threw two touchdowns and did damage with his legs. Two of his 12 carries gained more than 50 yards, including his 60-yard TD sprint in the third to lead 26-17.

“He’s a true specimen, and we knew it was hard to get him down,” said LeDonne, who coached Penn Hills in Dugger’s freshman and sophomore seasons. “We thought we had guys in positions to make plays and they just bounced off.”

As a passer, Dugger threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Naytel Mitchell in the first quarter, cutting Pine-Richland’s lead to 7-6, and later delivered a 15-yarder to Martel Palmer in the second.

The touchdown pass to Palmer came on fourth down just before halftime, and it gave Penn Hills an 18-17 lead.

“They played him man, and he won,” Dugger said of Palmer. “I put it out there, and he got it.”

Pine-Richland had led 7-0 after a 12-yard touchdown run by Talan Hill-Ressler, and later 10-6 after a 48-yard field goal by Grant Argilo. The Rams’ last lead was 17-12 after a 21-yard touchdown run by Pillar early in the second quarter.

Their only second-half points came on a 30-yard field goal by Argiro early in the fourth, cutting the deficit to 26-20.

“When you come to play Coach LeDonne and his teams, you’ve always got to respect them,” Morris said. “I knew we were going to be in for a four-quarter battle.”

This was the second year in a row that Morris and Penn Hills defeated Pine-Richland in the regular season. However, Pine-Richland went on to win conference, WPIAL and PIAA titles a year ago, while Penn Hills missed the playoffs.

So, Dugger said his Indians aren’t content, no matter how hard-fought the win.

“We’ve got a bigger goal,” he said. “Last year we beat them but fell short of our end goal. This year, we’re looking at our end goal every week.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

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