By Joe Smeltzer For the Observer-Reporter newsroom@observer-reporter.com IMPERIAL – It really came down to fourth down. Not that there needs to be too much studying on why No.
1 seed Fort Cherry beat No. 9 Cornell in the quarterfinals of the WPIAL Class A football quarterfinals Friday night at West Allegheny High School. No.
1 seeds are supposed to beat No. 9 seeds, and Fort Cherry did so by a comfortable margin. But perhaps why Fort Cherry played its way to a No.
1 seed while Cornell received a more modest placement was on display during a total of six fourth-down plays. Cornell went for it three times on offense and didn’t convert once. Fort Cherry went for it five times and didn’t fail to convert once, leading to 14 of its 27 points.
The difference in fourth down — along with FC quarterback and Penn State commit Matt Sieg rushing for more than 100 yards and three scores — led to Fort Cherry getting the job done in a 27-20 win. For Rangers coach Tanner Garry, who whose team beat Cornell 35-6 in the regular season, Cornell didn’t get the love it deserved from the WPIAL. “I think Cornell was a team that was not given the respect that they deserved this year.
They had two losses going into the playoffs and those were to the No. 1 and the No. 3 seed in the WPIAL playoffs,” he said.
“Those were their only two losses. We knew how good of a team that was, so playing them and getting out of here with a win, that’s a good team to get a win against, so we’re hap.