USC prepares for underdog Chartiers Valley
As Upper St. Clair readies for its battle at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19 against Chartiers Valley, the same cautions apply for the Panthers, who used them to compile a 24-16 win against Moon.
“We have to be prepared for anything because (CV) can do anything they want,” USC skipper Jim Render said. “We are at the part of the season where some teams have no chance for making the playoffs and they can do whatever they want. So we have to do better than we did last week because we weren’t as sharp in all facets as we should have been.”
The Panthers (7-1, 4-1) were still sharp enough.
Jason Sweeney completed 15 of 22 passes for 117 yards to improve to 1,125 yards on the year. He also rushed for 31 yards and a touchdown. His top targets have been the Pantelis brothers, Chris (30 receptions for 486 yards) and David (26 grabs for 488 yards).
While Antonio led all rushers with 73 yards on 20 attempts to improve to 841 yards on the season, Colin McLinden scored twice on a pair of 2-yard runs. Sean Martin also kicked a 26-yard field goal.
Jake Slinger led the defense with eight tackles while Brandon Shearer and Harvey Rauch followed with six and five respectively. Slinger and Jesse Fera picked off passes.
“Our defense continues to get better and we have some weapons that people are fearful and conscious of,” said Render. “We just need to continue to do our thing.”
Meanwhile, CV (3-5, 0-5) continues to focus on the things that have prevented the Colts from recording a conference victory. They did little right after converting a fumble into a score and 8-0 advantage before stumbling to a 41-24 defeat at the hands of Peters Township last week.
“We have to work on ourselves and minimize the mistakes we are making because USC is a very good football team that makes very few mistakes,” CV coach Dan Knause said.
Con¬nor Bar¬rett scored the first TD on a 1-yard run. Then Sean Banas and Caleb Nel¬son hooked up for the two-point conversion.
The Indians, however, reeled off 34 unanswered points, forging a comfortable 26-point halftime lead. Griffin Beattie had a hand in CV’s second-half scores. He rushed for a 3-yard TD, completed a two-point conversion pass to Banas and connected with Thomas Heckroth for a 17-yard scoring strike and two-point conversion.