USC overcomes tiring Canon-McMillan
CANONSBURG – The mark of a good team is being able to control a football game from beginning to end.
For three quarters, the Canon-McMillan football team did just that.
But the Big Macs must play four quarters in order to win a game. And it was that fourth quarter that did the Big Macs in.
Upper St. Clair scored three times in the final quarter, the last time on a five-yard run by quarterback Ethan Hellmann to take a 24-17 victory from the Big Macs in a non-conference game Friday night.
Suffering a knee injury two weeks ago, Canon-McMillan quarterback Mike Evans, the coach’s son, was nearly ready to return.
It would be a game-time decision for Evans and that decision was to sit him at least one more week.
Enter Ty Jansma, a lanky right-hander who sparked Canon-McMillan to a 17-3 lead.
Also enter Geno Calgaro, who picked up a blocked field goal and raced 80 yards for a touchdown.
But the Panthers scored on a tiring Canon-McMillan defense three touchdowns in about eight minutes to put the game away.
“We’re dealing with some things,” said C-M head coach Mike Evans. “We’re dealing with some guys being out and being one-dimensional on offense. Defensively, we were on the field way too much. I don’t know if our offense was on the field for 10 plays in the second half.”
The two teams came into the game with identical records. Canon-McMillan held a 1-2 record in the Class 6A Tri-County Five Conference and 5-2 overall. Upper St. Clair is 1-2 in the Class 5A Allegheny Six Conference and 5-2 overall.
Canon-McMillan travels to undefeated Peters Township next week for another non-conference game while Upper St. Clair will host Moon.
“I think we started seeing a couple of their guys cramping up in the second half and that allowed us to run the ball more effectively than we did in the first half,” Upper St. Clair head coach Mike Junko said. “Our offense was on the field for a lot of that second half and our defense did a great job getting three-and-outs.”
Ethan Hellmann fired a 12-yard touchdown pass to Charley Bywalski with 7:19 to play to tie the game, 17-17.
Canon-McMillan held a precarious 10-3 lead at halftime. Canon-McMillan scored on its first possession, a nine-play 56-yard drive that ended with a 17-yard run by Zach Welsh.
Jansma completed a pair of 15-yard completions to spark the drive. Jansma completed five of eight passes for 54 yards unofficially.
Upper St. Clair cut the lead to four points when Bennett Henderson connected on a 25-yard field goal. The big plays in the drive came on two passes to Van Hellmann from Ethan Hellmann. The first one covered 17 yards on third down.
Canon-McMillan answered before halftime with a nine-play drive that ended in 25-yard field goal by Zach Barzd. Zach Welsh carried six times in the drive for 21 yards.
Welsh had 88 rushing yards on 21 carries.