Sep 21, 2019 3 min read

BURGETTSTOWN – What a difference a week makes for the Burgettstown Blue Devils as they returned to Three Rivers Conference play.

Last week, the Blue Devils fell behind 12-2 at Summit Academy before roaring back to win 46-12. Though they eventually won comfortably, coach Mark Druga made it known to his players he was not pleased in the halftime locker room.

“My speech then was much different than it was tonight,” Druga added. “I was quite pleased with them tonight.”

After scoring on all five first-half possessions, the Blue Devils (3-0, 4-0) cruised home to a 42-9 win over South Side Beaver (2-3, 2-1) Friday evening at Hill Memorial Stadium.

Burgettstown raced out to a 28-0 lead and never looked back as they earned their 13th consecutive regular-season victory.

“Real proud of my guys,” Druga said. “We had a real good week of practice and was ready to go tonight and it showed right from the start.”

Jake Lounder and Seth Phillis led the way for the Blue Devils. Lounder finished with 114 yards on 10 bruising carries. He scored once on the ground from 18 yards early in the second quarter to stretch Burgettstown’s lead to 21-0 and found tight end Dylan Poirier on a 35-yard strike in the end zone following a Cole Shergi interception of an Aden Almashy pass one possession later.

Lounder appeared to be shaken up making a tackle on defense early in the third quarter and came out of the contest. Druga said his quarterback is fine.

“We wanted to get him out of there because we didn’t need score any more points,” Druga added. “We don’t want to run the score up on anyone.”

Phillis also accounted for two touchdowns. The do-it-all senior scored on a 10-yard run to start the scoring with about four minutes remaining in the first. He also returned the second-half kickoff 80 yards for a score and extended the Blue Devils’ lead to 42-7.

“He’s a stud, for sure,” Druga said in reference to Phillis. “Hopefully, some colleges will start to take notice of what he can do. His athleticism is incredible. You have to think he is MVP of the conference.”

Phillis also kicked all six extra points while accounting for 138 all-purpose yards.

Alexander Mitko made it 14-0 for the hosts late in the first quarter as he pinballed his way through several would-be Rams tacklers for a 43-yard scoring run.

Druga was also quite pleased with his defense as they mostly bottled up the Rams’ potent wing-T offense.

“We only have three defensive linemen and those three really had to control that trench,” Druga added. “That was the theme coming and they had to dig it out.”

The three linemen who were mostly responsible for slowing the Rams’ attack were Riley Kemper, John Baronick and Shane Cairns as they re-established the line of scrimmage toward the South Side Beaver backfield, holding Rams leading rusher Anthony Navarra to 71 mostly harmless yards on 12 carries.

Almashy did get the Rams on the scoreboard late in the first half when he directed an 80-yard scoring drive that was capped by a 30-yard touchdown toss to Trenton Seik.

Almashy finished with 77 yards on 7-of-17 passing. He was under pressure much of the night and was sacked twice.

Cyle Conley pushed the Blue Devils’ lead to 35-7 before the half ended with a two-yard plunge into the end zone.

South Side Beaver got a two-point safety late in the third when an errant punt snap rolled out of the end zone.