Southmoreland’s dream season continues with win over Brownsville

By: Mike Ciarochi
Friday, September 20, 2019 | 11:35 PM

By jumping out to a two-touchdown lead Friday night, Brownsville gave Southmoreland a slap in the face.

It got the attention of the Scotties, who responded with a 62-21 win over the Falcons at Redstone Field in Republic.

The win lifts Southmoreland to 5-0 overall and 4-0 in the Class AA Interstate Conference. It all but guarantees a playoff berth for the Scotties.

It would be Southmoreland’s first trip to the postseason in 40 years, and the 5-0 start is the Scotties’ best since 1964. (The 1979 playoff team started 4-0-1.)

“We started thinking about the playoffs during the summer,” quarterback Zach Cernuto said. “We knew we had the talent, but we don’t just want to make the playoffs, we want to go deep into them.”

The game started ominously for the Scotties. Tony Johnson took the game-opening handoff, bounced this way and that and rumbled 94 yards for a touchdown. Soon thereafter, a Southmoreland fumble set the table for Brownsville again.

Dan Grant cashed it in to make it 14-0 Brownsville midway through the first quarter.

“I was angry,” Scotties coach Dave Keefer said. “We knew we could score, but we were hurting ourselves with penalties and fumbles. We just had to stop making mistakes.”

The Scotties got a Cernuto-to-Riley Comforti scoring pass from 14 yards out to make it 14-7 and tied the score, 21-21, before halftime.

“That was huge,” Keefer said. “Our defense started to play and it helped us a lot to tie it before the half. We made some adjustments at halftime and knew our first possession of the third quarter would tell the tale.”

“We started the game pretty flat,” Comforti said. “Brownsville is tough and they made us pay, but once we got in gear, we were OK.”

On their first possession of the second half, the Scotties marched 50 yards in six plays with Colt Harper getting the score from 8 yards out. The drive seemed to open the floodgates for the Southmoreland, which also scored on its next two possessions to take a 42-21 lead.

After a defensive score opened the fourth quarter, the Scotties closed the game with two more scoring drives to win going away.

Cernuto passed for 184 yards and four touchdown, all to Comforti, while Harper ran for 57 yards and scored three times.

The Scotties tied the score 21-21 on a 67-yard pass from running back Anthony Govern to Brandon Peterson.

Tags: Brownsville, Southmoreland