By Chris Rossetti

CLARION – For the second straight week, Brockway broke open a close game late in the first half with a couple of late-half scores on its way to a 44-14 win over Oliver in the opening round of the PIAA Class AA playoffs Friday night at Clarion University’s Memorial Field.

The heavily favored Rovers (12-0) led Oliver (4-7) by 10, 16-6, with under three minutes to play in the half but scored two touchdowns in a span of 1:49 to turn the game into a rout by halftime with a 30-6 halftime lead.

“I think the fact we are a spread (offense) and it’s hard to defend, once we find a matchup we like we take advantage of it,” Brockway head coach Frank Varischetti said. “Once we seem to get rolling, stuff seems to fall apart for other teams a lot. That was the case again tonight with a couple of minutes left in the first half. We kind of broke a couple of things open, and they had a let down there and we jumped all over them.”

Mike Vervoort scored his second touchdown of the game on a 1-yard run with 2:38 left in the half to cap a seven-play, 56-yard drive giving the Rovers a 23-6 lead.

Then, after the Rover defense forced a three-and-out, Chris Marshall completed a five-play, 37-yard drive with a 12-yard touchdown run making it 30-6 with 49 seconds left in the half.

Marshall was the workhorse in the first half running for 91 yards on 11 carries while helping the Rovers run for 135 yards in the half. He finished the game with 18 carries for 102 yards while helping Brockway run for 169 yards on the night.

“Our offensive line played real well,” Varischetti said. “They were definitely trying to stop the pass. They only had five guys in the box pretty much all night, and our offensive line pretty much took advantage of it and made some huge holes. Chris did a pretty good job hitting those holes.”

But Marshall wasn’t alone, and that is what made Brockway’s offense so hard to contain.

Vervoort also caught a touchdown pass and returned an interception for a score while catching five passes for 66 yards. Derek Buganza added 159 yards passing and 43 yards rushing with Jake Shaffer catching four passes for 33 yards and Marshall four for 15. Zach Freemer scored a couple of short rushing touchdowns and ran for 13 yards on four carried and added two catches for 31 yards. He was one of five Rovers to catch passes and one of seven to carry the football.

“It makes us a lot more difficult to defend than if we had just one guy,” Brockway head coach Frank Varischetti said. “If one guy is having an off night or if the other team has one good defensive player and shut one of our guys down, we definitely have other weapons we can go to. Those guys have picked each other up all year and done a real good job.”

While Brockway was running and throwing over Oliver for 328 total yards, the Rover defense was once again shutting down an opponent.

Oliver managed just 154 yards of offense – including 74 on two scoring pass plays – and had negative 38 yards rushing on 18 carries.

“Our defense has really picked it up over the second half of the season,” Varischetti said. “That was our Achilles heel last year, we couldn’t stop anybody. The kids worked real hard in the offseason, and we’ve had some really good defensive game plans. We controlled the line of scrimmage tonight. We ran the ball and didn’t let them run the ball. I thought it was a great job by our interior guys.”

Buganza, the all-time leading passer in Pennsylvania history, had an efficient game as well going 17 of 24 for 159 yards and the score, although he did miss some open receivers down field. He now has 9,412 career passing yards and 92 touchdowns.

“Derek did a great job tonight,” Varischetti said. “It was a little tough on him. His thumb was a little sore tonight, and he didn’t have the grip to throw the deep balls. He was accurate again within 20 yards and did a good job managing the game.”  

Brockway scored first on special teams when a snap went over the head of Oliver punter Leandre Hunter, and Hunter then ran out of the back of the end zone after picking up the loose ball for a safety making it 2-0 Brockway.

After Brockway’s Vervoort fumbled the ensuing free kick at the Rover 37, the Brockway defense returned the favor when Joel Yahner recovered a Tyree Mathis fumble on the first Oliver play at the 37. That led to an 8-yard Freemer touchdown run giving the Rovers a 9-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Brockway added to the lead 13 seconds into the second quarter when Vervoort caught a 10-yard pass from Buganza making it 16-0.

Oliver got back in the game on a third-down play when sophomore quarterback Shakeem Cox hit Trevon Kendrick with a 57-yard scoring pass that turned out to account for 130 percent of the Bears’ 44 yards of offense for the half.

After the two late first-half scores by the Rovers, Vervoort picked off an Andre Williams halfback option pass and returned it 17 yards for a 37-6 lead midway through the third quarter. Vervoort and a host of other Rovers were in Williams’ face before he got the football one play after Cox temporarily left the game with an injury.

A 4-yard Freemer run with 2:49 left in the third quarter got the Mercy Rule rolling before Cox hit Jocquet Foster with a 17-yard scoring pass 53 seconds into the fourth quarter to close out the scoring.

Cox finished 16 of 32 for 192 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Foster had six catches for 87 yards and Kendrick five for 79. Cox, though, was sacked five times including three times by Morgan Murry and once each by Cody Overturf and Vervoort. Jake Shaffer added an interception for the Rovers.

NOTES – Brockway won a PIAA playoff game for the first time since 2002. It is only the second time a District 9 Class AA team has won a PIAA game since 2002 … District 9 Class AA teams are now 4-19 all time in PIAA action with both Brockway owning two and Karns City and Brookville one each … The Rovers will face the WPIAL champion – either South Fayette or Aliquippa – in the PIAA quarterfinals next week at a time, date and site to be determined … Coupled with Clearfield’s win over Shikellamy Friday night and the fact the D9 Class A champion gets an automatic berth in the PIAA quarterfinals, 2010 marks the second time in PIAA playoff history District 9 has had three teams in the quarterfinals. The other time was in 2002 when Clarion-Limestone (Class A), Brockway (Class AA) and Clearfield (Class AAA) were all in the quarterfinals. None of those teams won a quarterfinal game that season.

BROCKWAY 44, OLIVER 14

Score by Quarters

Oliver 0 6 0 8 – 14

Brockway 9 21 14 0 – 44

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

B – Safety (Leandre Harrison ran out of end zone following bad punt snap), 8:09

B – Zack Freemer 8 run (Phil Esposito kick), 6:01

Second Quarter

B – Mike Vervoort 10 pass from Derek Buganza (Esposito kick), 11:47

O – Trevon Kendrick 57 pass from Shakeem Cox (Run failed), 9:56

B – Vervoort 1 run (Esposito kick), 2:38

B – Chris Marshall 12 run (Esposito kick), 0:49

Third Quarter

B – Vervoort 17 interception return (Esposito kick), 6:50

B – Freemer 4 run (Esposito kick), 2:49

Fourth Quarter

O – Jocquet Foster 17 pass from Cox (Kendrick pass from Cox), 11:07

TEAM STATS

                                    O                     B

First Downs                8                      21

Rushes-Yards              18-(-38)           36-169

Passing Yards             192                  159

Passes: Comp-Att-Int 16-33-2            17-24-0

Total Yards                 51-154             60-328

Punts-Avg.                  7-29.7              5-32.2

Fumbles-Lost              3-1                   4-2

Penalties-Yards           8-45                 5-35

INDV. STATS

Rushing – Oliver: Jocquet Foster 1-6, Tyree Mathis 4-4, Andre Williams 3-3, Kevin Griffin 1-minus 7, Team 1-minus 17, Shakeem Cox 8-minus 27. Brockway: Chris Marshall 18-102, Derek Buganza 5-43, Mike Vervoort 3-22, Zack Freemer 4-13, Joe Caruso 2-12, Kyle Tiller 2-2, Houston Fairman 1-minus 2, Team 1-minus 23.

Passing – Oliver: Shakeem Cox 16 of 32, 192 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception; Andre Williams 0-for-1, 1 interception. Brockway – Derek Buganza 17 of 24 159 yards, 1 touchdown.

Receiving – Oliver: Foster 6-87, Kendrick 5-79, Williams 2-15, Michael 1-7, Leandre Harrison 1-5, Tyriq Mahdi 1-minus 1. Brockway: Vervoort 5-66, Jake Shaffer 4-33, Marshall 4-15, Freemer 2-31, Kyle Braun 2-14.

Interception – Brockway Shaffer, Vervoort.