| BY RICH RHOADES
SHARON - As impressive as the Curwensville High School football team
was in its District 9 Class A Championship victory over Clarion the week
before, so was the Sharpsville Blue Devils.
Curwensville's unbeaten dream season came to an end in the first round of
the PIAA state playoffs as the District 10 champions bottled up the Golden
Tide in a 7-0 victory at Sharon's Tiger Stadium Saturday night.
Curwensville's winningest season came to an end at 11-1.
Sharpsville (9-2) limited the Golden Tide to 71 yards of offense and only
three first downs. The Blue Devils, who were the decidedly smaller team,
were certainly the quicker team as their defense set the tone.
Sharpsville was also the younger team with only five seniors on the team,
but the performance was veteran-like for a program that won the PIAA state
title in 1997.
The Blue Devils scored the game's only touchdown early in the second
quarter when Ron Haywood scored on a 13-yard run. Sharpsville started the
drive with good field position, something it enjoyed most of the night, at
the Curwensville 49 yard-line and needed 10 plays to find the end zone.
Despite Sharpsville's offense running 66 plays to Curwensville's 35, the
Golden Tide defense managed to keep the Blue Devils from scoring again.
Haywood did score an apparant touchdown on a 13-yard run with 59 seconds
remaining, but the play was called back because of a holding penalty.
Of Curwensville's 10 possessions, five started inside its own 15 yard-line
and the Golden Tide failed to get past midfield. The furthest they got was
their own 43 yard-line.
While Haywood led Sharpsville with 80 yards rushing on 24 attempts,
quarterback Billy Stiger gave Curwensville's defense fits with his
scrambling out of the pocket. He gained 72 yards on 13 carries.
Statistically, it wasn't pretty for Curwensville. Mark Harnish rushed for
25 yards on five attempts and quarterback Matt Harnish completed 2 of 9
passes for 2 yards.
Curwensville managed only two plays over 10 yards, a Mark Harnish 19-yard
run late in the game and receiver Adam Donahue's 26-yard pass to Josh
Keely for the team's first first down with just under four minutes left in
the third quarter.
Sharpsville moves on to the next round of the state playoffs and will play
unbeaten Windber (12-0). Windber beat Bishop Carroll, 13-7, for the
District 5-6 crown Saturday night.
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