Tigers hope to avoid turnovers against TJ
LIAM BELAN lbelan@yourmvi.com
While we’ve become accustomed to watching Thomas Jefferson and McKeesport battle it out for the Big Seven Conference championship, the two rivals are set for entertaining Week 2 action in nonconference play tonight.
The stakes may not seem as high as they’ve been in previous encounters, but the game still carries plenty of importance.
For visiting McKeesport (0-2), one of the contenders in Class 4A, it has been an unexpected 0-2 start after a crushing, double-overtime 36-35 defeat at the hands of Lake (Ohio) in Week 0 before a 42-7 loss at Peters Township last week.
The Tigers aren’t pushing the panic button just yet. They have an assortment of playmakers like Anthony Boyd, Kemon Spell, Anthony Cromerdie, Brady Eastman and Valdez Stuvaints, who head coach Matt Miller referred to as the “glue” of the team. McKeesport is hoping that he’ll be available for tonight’s matchup after missing the Peters Township game.
“We have a good group of seniors, and they’ve been really positive,” Miller said. “There hasn’t been any finger-pointing and those types of things that you sometimes have. They’ve held everything together, which has been real important.”
Self-inflicted wounds have played a part in the shaky start for the Tigers, and Miller knows that his squad will have to clean things up if it wants to grab its first win of the young campaign in enemy territory.
“We have to take care of the football,” Miller said. “We had five or six turnovers last week in bad areas of the field and during long drives. We have to hold onto the football, and we have to cut out the dumb penalties. We’ve been talking about our football IQ and sharpening those types of things.”
On the other side, it’s been business as usual for the home Jaguars (2-0), who are always contenders in Class 4A under coach Bill Cherpak.
TJ holds wins over Baldwin (63-12) and Central Valley (27-13), the latter being a breakout game for sophomore running back Tyler Eber. Amidst the storming weather last Friday, Eber posted 132 rushing yards on 27 carries. Quarterback Luke Kosko has been in command of the offense and shown his connection with Brayden Miller, and backs like Eber and Matthew Martinis will look to beat McKeesport at its own game.
“We’ve played them so many times, we know it’s gonna be a tough game,” Cherpak said. “Quite honestly, they should have won that first game. If you blink, Boyd or Spell can be gone, so there’s always that threat. We know that because we’ve played them so many times in the past few years, and they’re always good games. I expect the same here.”
They’ll have a big advantage defending McKeesport’s unique triple option attack given their familiarity with the offense, so this one could be decided by the offensive and defensive line play.
“Being familiar with defending that is huge because you can’t replicate it in practice,” Cherpak said. “No one else runs it, and they run it so well. You have to adjust to their speed with it as well, because it’s different from trying to practice it.”
The Jaguars will look to avenge last year’s defeat at 7 p.m. in Thomas Jefferson Stadium.
