The Bellwood-Antis football team is certainly no stranger to district playoffs, waltzing to the district finals 11 times in the 22-year history of the playoffs, even coming home with four titles. The current crop of B-A seniors, the first-ever Blue Devil senior class to win at least 10 games in three straight seasons, have played in three championship games themselves, matching the 2002 senior class. That group also played in three district finals, although they went 0-3 in district finals. The 2007 seniors on the field Friday in the PIAA Western Semifinals won two of their three finals.
However, when the playoffs have that “PIAA” in front of them, Bellwood-Antis draws a blank. Three teams before them have entered the PIAA state playoffs following a district championship and none has come away a winner.
The 1997 Blue Devils were less than a minute away from advancing, when Sharpsville kicked a field goal to edge past B-A 17-15, and those other Blue Devils went on to win a state championship two weeks later.
Two years ago, when Josh Kleinfelter, Evan Hughes, Evan Celmo, Jon Davila and the rest of this year’s seniors were sophomores, a second-half effort by Camp Hill sent B-A (11-2) home with a 27-14 loss.
In 1988, following the Blue Devils’ first district title, Double-A Bellwood-Antis was shut out by Wilmington 21-0, stopping the best win mark (13-1) win in the history of the B-A football program.
The 1997 loss closed out a season of tough losses for Bellwood-Antis, with the Blue Devils (9-3) dropping all three losses in the final minutes of play. Losses came to Tyrone (27-20) and Penns Valley (29-28) during the regular season, leading up to the Sharpsville game.
The 2004 season opened with a 40-13 loss to Tyrone and ended with the Camp Hill contest, with 11 straight wins in between.
The game is once again at Mansion Park, which is a great bonus for the Bellwood-Antis nation, which is the currently popular manner to refer to fans and family of a sports team. The 2004 PIAA game was played at Mansion Park, while the 1988 contest with Wilmington was played at the Point Stadium in Johnstown, and the 1997 game with Sharpsville was played in Erie.
Steelton-Highspire High School is the two-time defending District 3-A champ who the Blue Devils will face on Friday night at 7 p.m. Steelton (11-2) finished 6-1 in the Mid-Penn League Capital Division. Steelton-Highspire High School is located in Steelton, about six miles southeast of Harrisburg, between Rt. 230 and Rt. 283.
The Steamrollers opened their 2006 season the easy way, picking up a win by forfeit over Pittsburgh Westinghouse. On the gridiron Steelton knocked off Lebanon 38-20, in week two, before dropping a high-scoring 52-34 decision to Pius X. Opening their league play, the Rollers beat Trinity 33-17, Scotland School 34-0, Camp Hill 39-6, Milton Hershey 35-0 and James Buchannon 34-12, before suffering their only Mid-Penn loss to Boiling Springs 54-21. Steelton came back with regular season wins over Waynesboro 19-7, and Reading Holy Name 27-7. Victories followed in the District 3-A playoffs, over Reading Central Catholic 34-20, and then knocked off previously undefeated Millersburg 47-31, to win their second straight district title.
Just when Millersburg scored to come back to trail only 27-25, Steelton-Highspire took advantage of clear mismatches in the passing game to put the game away in the second half.
All during the season, Steelton-Highspire, coached by Rob Deibler in his eighth season at Steel-High, has used a very efficient combination of strong running with deep home run passes by a group of sophomores.
“Steelton-Highspire has a line-up laced with sophomores and juniors, who play much more maturely and knowledgeably than you would think possible from all those underclassmen,” explained Bellwood-Antis coach John Hayes. “They are a real quality opponent. The run a couple of looks on offense, primarily using a Pro-I. If you are able to stop some of the basic things they do, then they will move out to a spread offense, to try to isolate their very-talented skill people. They want to take advantage of favorable match-ups for them.
“They throw a good deal more than we do. They like to take advantage of the defense to get man-to-man coverage in the secondary where they have more speed than the people who try to defend that. They will automatic at the line into situations where they think they can get match-ups to their advantage on fades and deep run-to-the-ball throws.”
Eerily similar to Bellwood-Antis in the rushing totals for their top two ballcarriers, sophomore Jeremiah Young (5-10, 175) has rushed 266 times for 1,966 yards and 27 TDs, and classmate Jordan Hill (6-3, 235) has rushed 72 times for 423 yards and four TDs. All the other Steamroller running backs have netted just another 162 yards rushing in 12 ballgames.
Sophomore quarterback Andre Campbell (6-1, 175) has completed 76 of 147 passes for 1,253 yards with 15 TDs and 10 interceptions. Five of those interceptions came in the loss to Pius X. Sophomore wide receiver Jordan Smith (5-10, 175) has caught 21 passes for 393 yards and three TDs. Junior wide receiver Kevin Porter (5-10, 165) has 19 receptions for 303 yards and three TDs. Young has 17 catches for 254 yards, and senior tight end Tom Zimmerman (6-0, 195) has six catches for 113 yards and a team-high four TDs.
“On defense, Steelton will usually line up in a 4-4, although they will keep the eight-man front and switch to a 3-5 look against teams that spread the field on them,” said Hayes. “They will probably do a lot of stunting, if we start to move the ball. They set up in their base defense as long as it works, if not, they turn up the heat with blitzes.”
As noted above the top two Blue Devil runners have nearly the same rushing totals, although the Blue Devils have played one fewer game. Josh Kleinfelter has rushed 259 times for 1,965 yards and 29 TDs, and senior classmate Jon Davila has rushed 69 times for 423 yards. Brandon Humphreys has 201 yards on 32 rushes, Devon Clapper has rushed 32 times for 173 yards and Justin Manning has 140 yards on 21 carries. Davila, Humphreys, Clapper and Manning have one TD rushing each.
Evan Hughes has completed 53 of 112 passes for 682 yards with seven TDs and nine interceptions. Over his last six games, Hughes has thrown five TD passes and just two picks. Devon Clapper has 18 catches for 269 yards and three TDs. David Burns has eight receptions for 95 yards and one TD, Brandon Pruznak has six catches for 105 yards and one score and Blaze Winterstein has six grabs for 60 yards.
Matching the two teams on offense and defense, on offense Steelton-Highspire averages 32.9 points, 212.6 yards rushing and 104.4 passing for 317 yards total offense. Bellwood-Antis averages 26.2 points, 252.8 yards rushing and 56.8 passing for 309.6 yards total offense.
On defense Steel-High gives up 18.8 points, 140.5 yards rushing and 117.8 passing. Bellwood-Antis gives up 7.5 points, 131.3 yards rushing, and 49.1 passing.
Steelton-Highspire has jumped out hard on opponents in 2006 outscoring a dozen foes 135-20 in first quarters, and more than doubled up the opposition in the fourth quarter 99-40. Over the middle two stanzas, Steel-High has been outscored 166-161.
According to Hayes, the keys to success on Friday night at Mansion Park are (1) prevent the long easy score- It puts points on the board and is very demoralizing. (2) try to force them into situations where they have to work to drive the ball long distances down the field. “They want to score quickly, this would frustrate them. We hope that with the number of plays they have to use, they will make a mistake or commit a penalty.”
“As you move up the ladder in the playoffs,” said the veteran Bellwood-Antis coach, “you need to do a better job of balancing your offense, be able to both run and pass. You have to block and pick up the blitzes to give your running game a chance and put in a little more passing into the game plan. The key is to keep the opponent’s defense off-balance.”
