By Chris Rossetti

CLARION – Kyle Armagost accounted for 336 yards and four touchdowns to lead Moniteau to a 40-0 win over Sheffield in the District 9 Class AA semifinals Saturday night at Clarion University’s Memorial Stadium.

Armagost was 12-for-20 passing for 232 yards and two touchdowns and added 104 yards rushing and two more scores while helping the Warriors to a 10-0 record, the first 10-0 start in school history.

“He’s a special young man,” Moniteau head coach Jeff Campbell said. “Any good coach will tell you that you want the ball in the hands of your best athlete. He’s our best athlete. He does a great job.”

Armagost wasn’t alone in leading the Moniteau offense, as Dustin Geagan added 137 yards rushing and two touchdowns, Ethan Pry had seven catches for 116 yards and Braydon McCorry chipped in a pair of touchdowns catches while finishing with two catches for 39 yards.

They helped Moniteau rack up 476 yards of total offense.

And while the Warrior offense was dominating, so was the Moniteau defense.

Sheffield had three yards of total offense including minus 32 rushing yards, which was helped in part by eight Moniteau sacks including four from Joey Deal, who set the single-season school record with 25 sacks.

The defensive performance was even more impressive considering Moniteau played most of the game without a pair of key defensive players – David Campbell and Tyler DiMaria – because of injury.

“I’m proud of our defense because we lost two starting defensive lineman,” Campbell said. “I can’t say enough about the young kids. Dustin Best, a sophomore, who had not played (in a varsity game this year) came in and played. Seth Beatty came in and played the Sam linebacker, which is not an easy position to play in our defense and did a great job. But that’s our system. We run it every day in practice, and these kids know it and it showed tonight.”

Moniteau didn’t waste any time reaching the scoreboard, as Armagost hit Pry with a 52-yard pass on the first offensive play of the game to move the ball to the Sheffield 9-yard line. That led to a 1-yard Geagan touchdown run just 1:32 into the game. Geagan’s touchdown run came one play after an apparent touchdown run by Armagost was negated because the officials hadn’t blown the play ready for play.

The Warriors made it 12-0 at the end of the first quarter when Armagost hit McCorry with a 13-yard scoring pass ending a 94-yard 10-play drive that actually covered 106 yards because of a Moniteau penalty.  Armagost passes for 67 yards and ran for 30 on the drive including a 33-yard pass to Pry on second-and-22 from the Moniteau 40-yard line following a 12-yard holding penalty.

Early in the second quarter, Moniteau went up 20-0 thanks to a 1-yard Armagost touchdown run that ended a 12-play, 80-yard drive that included a 42-yard Geagan run on an option play.

Moniteau looked like it was going to score again just before halftime when Armagost hit Geagan with a 67-yard pass that moved the ball inside the Sheffield 20-yard line, but Geagan fumbled the ball on the play with Sheffield recovering. It was one of three lost fumbles for the Warriors.

“I was concerned,” Campbell said. “My speech at halftime was ‘guys, Clarion was down 20-0 last night and came back and won that ball game. Don’t let up. We need to cut down on the mistakes. We need to come out and finish this thing.’ I thought they responded well.”

It took the Warriors until the fourth quarter to finish off Sheffield.

A 13-yard Armagost run four minutes into the quarter but the game away, then Geagan added a 3-yard touchdown run and Armagost hit McCorry with a 26-yard scoring pass with 3:10 left.

Sheffield, meanwhile, had minus 28 yards in the second half and finished the season 4-7 with its first District 9 playoff appearance.

Moniteau will face rival Karns City in the District 9 Class AA Championship game at 7 p.m. Friday at Clarion University’s Memorial Stadium. The Warriors are looking for their first District 9 title.

MONITEAU 40, SHEFFIELD 0

Score by Quarters

Sheffield 0 0 0 0 0 – 0

Moniteau 12 8 0 20 – 40

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

M – Dustin Geagan 1 run (kick failed), 10:28

M – Braydon McCorry 13 pass from Kyle Armagost (pass failed)), 2:44

Second Quarter

M – Armagost 1 run (Joey Deal pass from Armagost), 8:02

Fourth Quarter

M – Armagost 13 run (pass failed), 8:10

M – Geagan 3 run (run failed), 5:19

M – McCorry 26 pass from Armagost (Geagan run), 3:10

            S          M

First Downs    6          17

Rushes-Yards  35-(-32)           31-244

Passing Yards 35        232

Passing: Comp-Att-Int            6-16-0  12-20-0

Totals Yards    3          476

Fumbles-Lost  3-1       4-3

Punts-Avg.      6-29.3  0-0

Penalties-Yards7-31    5-47

Individual Statistics

Rushing – Sheffield: Kalil Slaughter 5-minus 11, Nick Bonavita 13-31, Ike Nearing 11-minus 46, George Fitch 3-13, Kwante Johnson 1-minus 5, Shequan Wright 2-minus 14. Moniteau: Kyle Armagost 16-104, Tyler DiMaria 1-1, Dustin Geagan 13-137, Joey Deal 1-2.

Passing – Sheffield: Ike Nearing 5-for-8, 36 yards. Nick Bonavita 0-for-1. Shequan Wright 1-for-7, minus-1 yard. Moniteau: Kyle Armagost 12-for-20, 232 yards, 2 touchdowns.

Receiving – Sheffield: George Fitch 2-8, Nick Bonavita 1-7, Shequan Wright 3-20. Moniteau: Ethan Pry 7-116, Ken Miller 1-9, Braydon McCorry 2-39, Dustin Geagan 1-63, Joey Deal 1-5.