Game of the Week: Young QBs meet as Fort Cherry hosts California
California’s Brandon Meier and Fort Cherry’s Colin Sieg were certainly impressive in their varsity debuts at quarterback last Friday night.
For an encore, they will face off in Week 2.
The Rangers host the Trojans, 7 p.m. tonight for a nonconference football game at Jim Garry Stadium.
Meier, a sophomore, was 11 for 15 passing for 266 yards and four touchdowns and ran in two more scores in California’s 40-6 stomping of Mohawk.
Sieg put on a similar display for Fort Cherry. The freshman completed 8 of his 10 attempts for 145 yards and two touchdowns and scored a rushing touchdown as the Rangers downed neighboring rival Chartiers-Houston, 49-7.
Now they’ll get the chance to play against each other.
“It’s a pretty cool feeling,” Meier said about the matchup. “I’ve been looking forward to this game all week. It’s going to be a really good matchup and I’m excited for it.”
Rangers coach Tanner Garry is a former quarterback that played at Slippery Rock, so he has a keen eye for talented play at the position.
Not to mention he just coached All-State quarterback Matt Sieg the last four years.
Garry was impressed with what he saw from Meier on tape.
“He’s a good athlete and a kid that definitely jumps off the film,” Garry said of Meier. “He can run and pass and you can tell he has a good understanding of what they’re trying to do. Sometimes when you have a first start you’ll have some growing pains, but I didn’t see a ton of that. He hopped in there and had a good performance in his first start.”
Garry also had high praise for his freshman quarterback.
“He performed well and there weren’t a whole lot of mental mistakes or things that are glaring issues,” Garry said. “He managed the game in a great way and put us in good positions. He didn’t turn over the ball, make any mistakes that were costly and took what the defense gave him. That’s something you have to harp on with young quarterbacks. He did some things that you typically see out of a junior or senior quarterback and that’s always good to see that early in a career.”
This matchup doesn’t just feature young quarterbacks, but a pair of defending conference champions.
Fort Cherry won the Class A Black Hills Conference and California took the Tri-County South.
The two teams haven’t met since 2017 when they were both in the TCS. California won the game, 49-0.
Garry said the Trojans have similar traits to his team when it comes to physicality and believes that might make the difference in the outcome.
He also credited them with some good disguises on offense that can make them uncomfortable for the defense.
“They’re a team that really wants to try and make you think defensively,” Garry said. “They line up in a lot of different formations, some unbalanced sets. They’re hoping you can’t get aligned correctly, so they have leverage or you’re outmanned on one side. It causes problems and you have to make sure your kids are on the same page to line up properly. Because if you’re misaligned it’s hard to make plays.”
Fort Cherry has some veteran players around the freshman quarterback, like Eli Salvini, Ryan Huey, Landon Trnavsky and Tyler Wolfe to name a few.
Each one had a good game against Chartiers-Houston and they’ll look for more of the same in Week 2.
“It was good to see a lot of different people do a lot of good things in terms of playmaking,” Garry said. “We had Eli Salvini with some touchdowns. Landon Trnavsky scored a touchdown, Colin scored a touchdown and Ryan Huey. Having a lot of different guys getting their name in the hat was encouraging to see. We have guys that can make splash plays. With Matt (Sieg) the last few years being the guy that made those big plays, it’s nice to see that there’s guys here stepping up to that challenge.”
Extra points
Monessen will try to join an exclusive club tonight at Carmichaels when it goes for its 700th victory. The Greyhounds would be the ninth WPIAL team to do so, joining Aliquippa, Jeannette, New Castle, Wash High, Clairton, McKeesport, Greensburg Salem and Beaver Falls. … Other matchups featuring two local teams are Burgettstown at Avella, Bentworth at Jefferson-Morgan, Trinity at Canon-McMillan, Chartiers-Houston at Waynesburg and Peters Township at South Fayette. … Wash High hosts South Allegheny for its home opener. It’s a rematch of a WPIAL Class 2A quarterfinal playoff game from last year, which the Prexies won 31-7.