McCartney Throws For 405 Yards And Five TDs; Golden Rams Advance

Box Score

WEST CHESTER, Pa. – West Chester ran up 573 yards of total offense, and quarterback Sean McCartney (Doylestown, Pa./Archbishop Wood) threw for 405 yards and five touchdowns, as the 15th-ranked Golden Rams advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division II playoffs with a 46-20 victory over visiting Slippery Rock Saturday at Farrell Stadium.
 
McCartney threw for 328 yards and all five scores in the first half alone as West Chester jumped out to a 32-6 advantage. Tight end Tim Brown (Clifton Heights, Pa./Upper Darby) was the main target of McCartney all day. He finished with seven catches for 164 yards and three TDs. WR Mike Doty (Chalfont, Pa./Central Bucks South) caught five passes for 108 yards and a score.
 
West Chester (11-1) advances to play the top seed in Super Region 1, Concord University (11-0), on the road next Saturday.
 
The Golden Rams set, or tied, six team school records in a playoff game while establishing four other individual marks in a postseason game with the most impressive of which were the team's 573 yards of total offense and Andrew Cohen (Holland, Pa./Council Rock South) 5.5 tackles for a loss.
 
Slippery Rock (9-3), playing without its starting quarterback and watching three more first-team All-PSAC West athletes on defense leave the game due to injury, just could not get into any kind of rhythm. The reason for that in large part was West Chester's constant pressure on reserve QB Zack Newsock.
 
"I don't think (Slippery Rock) had seen a defense as fast as ours," WCU head coach Bill Zwaan said. "Their quarterbacks were under duress all day long."
 
West Chester's stop unit registered 13 tackles for a loss, including four sacks, and was credited with three more QB hurries. That constant pressure resulted in one interception and five pass breakups. Cohen led the way with nine tackles. He posted 5.5 tackles for a loss and 1.5 sacks while knocking down a pass at the line of scrimmage.
 
"We recognized some of the things they were doing from watching film during the week," Cohen explained.
 
Slippery Rock mustered just 31 rushing yards in the game and 158 yards of total offense. The Rock's 1,000-yard rusher, Shamar Greene, had -5 yards rushing at halftime and finished with 23 yards on the ground.
 
Brown caught 33-yard, 34-yard and 23-yard TD passes in the first half. Brown and Doty each caught for more than 100 yards in the game, marking the second time in school history that teammates caught for 100 yards in the same playoff game.
 
McCartney's 405 yards marked the second time in his career that the signal-caller has eclipsed 400 passing yards in a playoff game. He threw for 423 yards in a first-round win last year at Farrell Stadium over American International College. His five TD passes is the third time this year that McCartney has thrown that many scoring strikes in a game. The sixth-year senior now has 39 TD passes on the year – one shy of Dave McDonald's single-season school record.