Early-game mistakes & mental hurdles bury OLSH in WPIAL title game, ending Cinderella run

PITTSBURGH — If anyone knows how quickly things can change, it’s Dan Bradley. 

But the 10th-year Our Lady of Sacred Heart High School head coach couldn’t even explain this one. After his No. 9 Chargers (9-4) had blown out No. 8 Greensburg Central Catholic and pulled upsets over No. 1 Clairton and No. 5 Rochester on their Cinderella run to Friday’s WPIAL Class 1A championship game at Heinz Field, Bradley’s group fell short — way short.

A few key mistakes early seemed to linger in players’ minds. And those psychological hurdles proved to be insurmountable in a 42-7 loss to the No. 3 Bishop Canevin Crusaders (13-1).

“I think a lot of times, we forget that these are 17, 18 year olds,” said Bradley, who led then-Class 1A top dog OLSH to a WPIAL title in 2018  “And in our case and Canevin’s case, there are a lot of 14, 15 year olds out there, too. So, the mental part comes into play, as well.”

Heading into this season, the Chargers were considered by many to be one of the favorites in a deep Class 1A. But back-to-back late-season losses to below-.500 teams in Shenango and Northgate nearly killed their hope of even making the postseason. That was, at least, until something clicked, sparking a turnaround that led to victories over Cornell, Clairton and Rochester — all top-five seeds in the WPIAL playoffs — all in the past month.

Bradley and his players have admitted that there were times during this campaign when team chemistry and mental fortitude were an issue — especially when things began to unravel in the second half of the regular season.

Before Friday, though, those problems looked to be a thing of the past.

Against the Crusaders, the Chargers struck first when junior quarterback Nehemiah Azeem found senior running back Stephen Greer in the end zone for a six-yard touchdown with about four minutes left in the first quarter.

But it took just a little over seven minutes for the Crusaders to respond — and they never looked back.

In the nine-minute stretch before the first half mercifully came to an end, Bishop Canevin scored 28 unanswered points. Running back Keshawn Harris started the barrage, finding the end zone first on a six-yard run, before receiver Xavier Nelson took over. The star junior did it on both sides of the ball, too — with a 46-yard pick-six sandwiched in between 67-yard and 35-yard touchdown receptions.

“Honestly, it’s all an attitude thing,” said senior linebacker Gavin Tonery about the difficulty of staying mentally engaged when falling behind quickly. “We had been down like that before.”

This time was different. That much was obvious when Azeem threw the second of his four interceptions midway through the third quarter. The pass bounced off of the front of one of his offensive linemen’s helmets and fell into the hands of linebacker Marquis Carter, who recovered the ball at OLSH’s 27-yard line.

Carter then proceeded to rip off a series of sizable runs before quarterback Kole Olszewski hit wide-open receiver Willie Banks-Hicks in the middle of the end zone for a short touchdown with 4:46 left in the third quarter.

A running clock began, and the unfortunate ending to the Chargers’ magical postseason run started to sink in for players.

Frustration ensued. OLSH chirped at its opponent, and vice versa.

“Everything was said,” said Crusaders senior running back Eli Wilson of what he heard from a few Chargers players when unsportsmanlike conduct flags were thrown late in the contest. “There was not anything not said. They said everything.”

For a program that was on this stage just three years ago, it was a bitter conclusion to a season that had so much promise. Perhaps it was even more difficult for the Chargers to stomach because they’d appeared to turn a corner as of late.

Though Bradley is undoubtedly proud of his team for overcoming the adversity that it did this fall, when it comes to what went wrong on Friday, he doesn’t know where to start.

“Turning point? ...,” he said in response to a reporter following the loss. “I think there were a few.”

Contact Parth Upadhyaya at pupadhyaya@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @pupadhyaya_.