Box Score
WEST CHESTER, Pa. – Rondell White caught a 10-yard touchdown pass from Sean McCartney with 1:05 remaining to lift No. 19/20 West Chester to a 22-21 come-from-behind victory over visiting Kutztown in a PSAC East football contest inside John A. Farrell Stadium Saturday night.
West Chester (4-0, 2-0 PSAC East) remains perfect on the year while Kutztown (0-4, 0-2) suffered yet another frustrating loss, after outplaying the Golden Rams for a good majority of the game. Kutztown’s defense limited the seventh-ranked rushing offense in the country to 51 yards on the night – more than 200 yards under its per game average.
The Golden Rams scored two touchdowns in the final 8:14 of the game to erase a 21-10 deficit. Tim Keyser caught a 30-yard TD pass over the middle at the goal line and pinballed off a pair of Kutztown defensive backs into the end zone to draw the hosts to within 21-16, after the two-point conversion failed. White then hauled in a McCartney aerial on a little out pattern and scurried 10 yards into the end zone for the go-ahead score. Once again, the two-point conversion was no good.
West Chester, a team that managed just 170 yards of total offense and one TD in the entire first half, accounted for 181 yards in the fourth quarter and two very important touchdowns when it mattered most.
“Big time players make big time catches in big games,” White said about Keyser’s TD grab over the middle late in the game. “It gave us the momentum we needed to go score another touchdown later.”
Keyser finished with 108 yards on six catches for the Rams. Fellow WR Erick Brundidge caught four balls for 103 yards. McCartney went 25-fior-42 for 383 yards and a pair of TD passes. He has now thrown for multiple touchdowns in each of West Chester’s first four games this season.
“We didn’t play our best game tonight,” White said afterwards. “But, we hung in there and fought ‘til the end. Like (head coach Bill Zwaan) said, ‘Championship teams are made by winning these types of games.’”
“Obviously, we didn’t play our best game tonight,” West Chester head coach Bill Zwaan said afterwards. “Sean didn’t have his best game of the year, wide receivers were dropping balls all over the place, and defensively, we were soft at times. But, he made plays when he had to.
“We have to be challenged, if we are going to find out what kind of a football team we can be. Well, we couldn’t have been more challenged tonight. The guys wanted to finish that game the right way, and they did. So, there were a lot of positives out of a negative game.”
Kutztown QB Alec Werner threw an 8-yard TD strike to Alex Tonnies with 11:50 left in the fourth quarter to put the Golden Bears on top, 21-10. When West Chester fumbled the ball away on the third play of its next possession, Kutztown looked to be in control – up 11 with 10 minutes to play.
However, Al-Hajj Shabazz picked off the first of his two interceptions in the fourth quarter on the Bears’ second play from scrimmage to give the ball back to West Chester’s offense at midfield with 9:33 to play. That is when the Rams began the first of their two scoring drives late in the game. This drive resulted in Keyser’s 30-yard TD reception with 8:14 to go.
Kutztown took the ball at its own 35-yard line and marched to the West Chester 43 where the Bears were faced with a 3rd-and-10. Werner went long down the near sideline looking for his favorite target on the night, Brett Fox (13 catches, 190 yards), but West Chester DB Blaise Schieler broke up the pass, and KU punted.
The Bears downed the punt at the Rams’ 2-yard line, forcing the hosts to go 98 yards in 4:48, if they were to pull out the win. West Chester made it to its own 40-yard line, before McCartney threw an interception that certainly seemed to seal West Chester’s fate.
Kutztown now had the ball back at its own 37-yard line with 3:27 to play, trying to protect a 21-16 advantage. Curtis Wortham ran the ball twice for a total of nine yards. Then, on 3rd-and-1 from KU’s 46, Ronell Williams (15 tackles) and Anthony McCloskey stopped Justin Michalak short of the first down, and the Bears were forced to kick it away once again.
WCU’s Brandon Monk signaled for the fair catch at his own 19. However, Kutztown was whistled for kick-catching interference that gave the Rams the ball at their own 34. McCartney then engineered a 4-play, 66-yard drive that culminated in White’s 10-yard TD reception with 1:05 to go that put West Chester on top for good, 22-21.
Kutztown had one last drive left to try to get into field goal range and possibly salvage the win. However, Williams broke up a Werner pass on 3rd-and-10 at around the Rams’ 35-yard line, and Shabazz picked off Werner’s long pass down the far sideline at the Rams’ 19 with :04 left on the clock to salt away the game.
Jr., LB Mike Labor ended the night with 10 tackles for West Chester, including three for a loss. Sr., DE Eric Edwers registered 2.5 sacks while Sr., SS Shawn Krautzel recorded five tackles, intercepted a pass, broke up another and blocked a 19-yard field goal attempt by Kutztown in the first half that proved to be crucial down the stretch.
Next Saturday, West Chester continues its three-game winning streak by hosting No. 25 California (Pa.), which lost a 20-7 decision to PSAC West rival Indiana (Pa.) in the fifth-annual Coal Bowl on Saturday.
NOTES: West Chester improves to 4-0 for the first time since 1974 when the Golden Rams won their first eight games of the campaign … West Chester opens the year at 2-0 in conference play for the second straight season … West Chester now leads the overall series against Kutztown, 49-9-1 … West Chester and Kutztown combined for a grand total of nine turnovers (Kutztown-4; WCU-5) … there were a combined nine fumbles in the game – mostly botched snaps by Kutztown … KU fumbled five times, but did not lose any of the fumbles as they were bad snaps that rolled around the backfield … West Chester surrendered its first sack allowed of the season … however, the Golden Rams registered six sacks in the game themselves … that is the most sacks in a game by WCU since dropping Millersville’s QB six times on Nov. 6, 2010 … Jr., MLB Ronell Williams registered a season-best 15 tackles … Jr., QB Sean McCartney threw for a season-high 383 yards … his 42 pass attempts and 25 pass completions were each the second most in a single game for the signal caller … Jr., DB Al-Hajj Shabazz intercepted two passes in the game to establish a new personal high …both Keyser and Brundidge caught for more than 100 yards in the game ... it marked the first time since 2009 that West Chester had two wide receivers catch for more than 100 yards in the same game ... ironically, it came one week after WCU had two RBs rush for more than 100 yards in the same game ... tonight’s game was Coaches To Cure MD game, which is an initiative spearheaded by the American Football Coaches’ Association (AFCA) to help raise money to find the cure for muscular dystrophy – in particular Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy … honorary captain for the game was Eddie McKeaney, a young boy currently battling the disease … tonight’s game was also the annual “Pink Out” game in which proceeds from T-shirt sales throughout the week and at the game went towards Unite for HER – an organization that helps women, who are breast cancer survivors.
