Pine-Richland gets 2nd win by upsetting Gateway

By: Wes Crosby
Friday, September 24, 2021 | 11:28 PM

Things didn’t start the way Steve Campos would’ve liked after replacing Eric Kasperowicz as Pine-Richland’s coach. An 0-3 start to the season had the Rams in an unfamiliar position.

That could be changing as Pine-Richland earned a second straight win by defeating No. 2-ranked Gateway, 21-7, in a Class 5A nonconference matchup Friday in Monroeville.

“We’ve got some warmups here the last couple weeks,” Campos said. “We got back to playing Rams football. We’re eliminating the mistakes. I’m looking forward to next week.”

After beating Upper St. Clair and Gateway in consecutive weeks, Pine-Richland will start conference play at home against Penn Hills next Friday.

The Rams (2-3) took the 21-7 lead into halftime. Thanks to the defense, that’s all they needed.

Pine-Richland had four second-half sacks, never letting Gateway (3-2) get going. Gators quarterback Bradley Birch was 5 for 9 for 57 yards in the half, with 52 of those yards coming on his final two completions and less than a minute remaining.

“(Birch) really didn’t know who was getting doubled up,” Campos said. “That kind of helped out a little bit. … We tried to confuse him a little bit.”

Gateway ran the ball 14 times with eight runs coming from Birch, who completed 21 of 35 passes for 270 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

“We’ll look at the film. I don’t know what it was,” Gators coach Don Holl said. “It could’ve been the protection. It could’ve been the protector. It could’ve been the call. We didn’t do a very good job as a staff getting us ready to do it.”

Not much came from the Pine-Richland offense in the second half, either. But it didn’t make critical errors, allowing the defense to close things out by stuffing a run on fourth-and-1 at the Gateway 10, turning the ball over with 2:11 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Gateway had won its past two games since losing 21-16 to Thomas Jefferson on Sept. 3. It beat Penn Hills and Bethel Park by a combined score of 90-26 following that loss.

“It has to be (a wakeup call),” Holl said. “We’re in our section now. We’ve got to go ahead and see what we can do. We’ve got to be better than we were tonight.”

A few mistakes let a relatively even first half slip from the Gators.

After a snap sailed over punter Cole Plaskon, Pine-Richland took over at the Gateway 2-yard line. Ryan Palmieri took a direct snap on the first play of the ensuing drive, giving the Rams a 14-7 lead 10 seconds into the second quarter.

Birch later was intercepted on consecutive drives, the first ultimately leading to another Palmieri 2-yard score on a direct snap. Colton Boyd hit Alex Gochis for a 37-yard reception the previous play before the Gators were called for roughing the passer, putting it at the 2.

“We weren’t good enough to beat anybody tonight,” Holl said. “Full credit to them, but what did we have? Six or seven turnovers? Stupid penalties. Didn’t protect well. Had some missed assignments. We weren’t good enough to win tonight. That’s on me.”

Palmieri had his two touchdowns despite rushing for minus-2 yards on six carries in the first half.

Pine-Richland opened the scoring on its first drive when Boyd floated a ball over Kenny Lewis to Gelly Bradford for 74 yards down the left sideline with 7:35 left in the first quarter. Gateway immediately answered when Dallas Harper split the defensive backs and hauled in a pass from Birch for a 33-yard score, tying it 1:51 later.

Boyd finished 15 of 25 for 202 yards despite completing just five passes for 30 yards in the second half. But that didn’t much matter with the Gators struggling to move the ball on the other side.

“They’re very well coached,” Campos said of Gateway. “They have some players. Just so happened that, today, we made some plays early and the defense played well.”

Listen to an archived broadcast of this game on Trib HSSN.

Tags: Gateway, Pine-Richland