By Rich Rhoades

CLARION –Derek Buganza etched his name in the District 9 record book and the Brockway Rovers won their first playoff game in four years with a 37-20 win over Moniteau in a District 9 Class AA playoff game at Clarion University’s Memorial Field Saturday afternoon.

The Rovers junior quarterback broke Clearfield’s Chad Kroell’s 1994 record of 3,224 yards by completing 23 of 37 passes for 363 yards and five touchdowns against the Warriors. He now stands at 3,435 yards, which is clearly within range of the state record of 3,684 yards set by Mechanicsburg’s Zach Frazer in 2004.

In fact, Buganza is within 280 career yards of Smethport’s Mike DeFilippi’s District 9 career passing mark of 6,638 yards. Buganza also passed Kroell’s career yardage total, moving into second place behind DeFilippi.

Next up for the Rovers (8-3) is Karns City in the championship game at a site and time to be announced.

If the individual marks fall against Karns City, that would mean good news for the Rovers, who needed most of those yards from Buganza to beat the Warriors, led by James Shope’s 268 yards and two touchdowns.

The big key was two Moniteau turnovers that led to Rovers touchdowns. The Warriors fumbled on the third play of the game at their own 16. Joel Yahner’s first of two fumble recoveries gave the ball to the Rovers at the 16. Two plays later, Buganza revved up the scoreboard with his first TD pass on an 11-yarder to Mike Vervoort, his leading receiver who caught 12 balls for 224 yards and three touchdowns.

Vervoort went over 1,300 yards for the season, increasing his totals to 79 catches for 1,307 yards and 15 TDs. The 79 catches is likely a district record while Clearfield’s Wes Dahlem — Kroell’s top target back in 1994  — finished with a district-record 1,349 yards. Dahlem and Clarion-Limestone’s Brad Beggs each caught a record 19 TD passes.

Moniteau did answer the Rovers with a 10-play scoring drive that covered 80 yards, which was aided greatly by a Rovers personal foul call on roughing the punter. Tyler Armagost tossed a 28-yard TD pass to Zach Wheeler with 5:55 left in the first quarter.

In what started to be forming into a shootout, the Rovers scored on the first play following the ensuing kickoff when Buganza hit Vervoort with a short pass, which turned into an 83-yard scoring play. Even though the point-after kick was missed, it started a 27-0 run that put the Rovers in control of the game.

Yahner’s second fumble recovery on a David Campbell fumble at the Warriors’ 49 led to the Rovers’ next score. Buganza hit Jake Shaffer on a 6-yard TD  pass with 10:27 left in the second quarter to put the Rovers up 20-7.

Brockway took the opening second-half kickoff and marched 80 yards on 14 plays — its longest drive of the game that consisted of 11 passing attempts — and was finished off by Buganza’s 17-yard pass to Shaffer, who finished with six receptions for 78 yards.

Moniteau began to get its running game going with Shope, who ran for 212 yards on 12 carries alone in the second half thanks to big runs of 55, 63, 44 and 50 yards. His 55-yarder on the Warriors’ ensuing possession got Moniteau to the Rovers’ 11, but an offensive pass interference call on second down helped stall the drive on downs at the Rovers’ 25 with 4:09 left in the third.

A little over two minutes later, the Rovers essentially put the game out of reach with their final touchdown off a 75-yard drive that took seven plays. Buganza’s 14-yard TD pass to Vervoort with 2:06 left in the third put the Rovers up 34-7.

Shope scored two plays later on Moniteau’s next possession on his 63-yarder and then his 50-yarder with 7:17 left in the game cut it to 34-20, but the Warriors ran out of time as the Rovers put three more points up on Philip Esposito’s 18-yard field goal with 2:09 remaining.

NOTES: The Rovers and Warriors were meeting for the first time since the Rovers beat the Warriors, 22-20 in the district championship game, on the same field in 2005. Since then, the Rovers lost 62-28 to Karns City in the first round of the 2006 playoffs and 39-20 to Brookville in the first round of the 2007 postseason before missing the playoffs a year ago. … Buganza’s career yardage stands at 6,358 with 61 touchdowns. Kroell is the district leader with 79 career TD passes and Clarion-Limestone’s Hayden Johnston is second with 70. … Kroell still holds the state and district single-season TD passing mark with 49. … Kroell’s stats came in 13 games while Buganza and the Rovers head into their 12^th game of the year against Karns City. … Shope, who got his 268 on 24 carries, finished the season with 1,444 yards. He finished his career with 3,759 yards.

BROCKWAY 37, MONITEAU 20

Score By Quarters

Moniteau        7          0          7          6          -           20

Brockway       13        7          14        3          -           37

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

B – Mike Vervoort 11 pass from Derek Buganza (Philip Esposito kick), 10:07.

M – Zack Wheeler 28 pass from Tyler Armagost (Anthony Miller kick), 5:55.

B – Mike Vervoort 83 pass from Derek Buganza (kick failed), 5:34.

Second Quarter

B – Jake Shaffer 6 pass from Derek Buganza (Philip Esposito kick), 10:27.

Third Quarter

B – Jake Shaffer 17 pass from Derek Buganza (Philip Esposito kick), 9:04.

B – Mike Vervoort 14 pass from Derek Buganza (Philip Esposito kick), 2:06.

M – James Shope 63 run (Anthony Miller kick), 1:11.

Fourth Quarter

M – James Shope 50 run (Anthony Miller kick failed), 7:17.

B – Philip Esposito 18 field goal, 2:09.

                                    B                                 M

First Downs                18                                16

Rushes-Yards              23-36                           43-290

Passing Yards             363                              69

Com-Att-Int                23-38-0                        5-22-1

Total Yardage             399                              359

Punts-Average                        3-42.7                          4-35.3

Fumbles-Lost              2-0                               2-2

Penalties-Yards           6-59                             12-96

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing – Brockway : Ryan Terwilliger 13-22, Derek Buganza 8-13, Tom Vervoort 2-1. Moniteau: James Shope 24-268, Tyler Armagost 17-19, David Campbell 2-3.

Passing – Brockway: Derek Buganza 23-of-37, 363 yards, 5 TDs; Chris Marshall 0-of-1. Moniteau: Tyler Armagost 4-of-17, 62 yards, 1 TD, 1 Int.; James Shope 1-of-2, 7 yards; Zach Wheeler 0-of-1; Team 0-of-2.

Receiving – Brockway: Mike Vervoort 12-224, Jake Shaffer 6-78, Zack Freemer 2-39, Ryan Terwilliger 2-15, Chris Marshall 1-7. Moniteau: Zach Wheeler 4-57, Austin Hogsett 1-12.

Interceptions – Brockway: Mike Vervoort.

Sacks – Brockway: Ryan Terwilliger, Tom Vervoort 0.5, Chris Marshall 1.5,  Derek Buganza. Moniteau: Robert Moore 0.5, Jacob Boy 0.5.

Kickoff returns – Brockway: Jake Shaffer 1-12, Seth Galluzzi 1-6. Moniteau: Victor Santoyo 3-34, Zach Wheeler 1-17.

Punt returns – Brockway: Kyle Braun 1-3. Moniteau: James Shope 1-6.