Steel Valley’s Da’ron Barksdale took over Moon Area High School’s Tiger Stadium Saturday night and set the tone for the Ironmen as they throttled Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 38-6, in a WPIAL Class 2A Allegheny Conference matchup.
Barksdale, a Pitt commit, ran for 128 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries. His touchdown run was a 77-yarder on the second play of the game, spinning around one player and directly trucking the next Charger after the spin. It was all open field from there.
“I feel like I had to score,” Barksdale said. “We’ve had a problem scoring on the first drive of the game recently. Last week, we came here after an upset, so I just felt like we had to execute early.”
Barksdale also intercepted a pair of passes and turned one of them into a 72-yard pick six.
“It was great because I had a problem with getting interceptions,” Barksdale said. “Getting two interceptions, one a pick six, was amazing.”
The Ironmen tallied three interceptions, with Barksdale’s two and Ashad Dye adding one in the fourth quarter.
“We just had some unfortunate things happen at the beginning of the game and got us kind of out of whack,” OLSH coach Donnie Militzer said.
Militzer said he enjoyed coaching against Barksdale.
“He’s a competitor, he’s a player and he took control of the game,” Militzer said.
Rayvon Price also helped spearhead the Ironmen defense, tallying two sacks, two tackles for losses and one fumble recovery that he returned for a 60-yard touchdown that put them up 23-0.
Steel Valley drained the Chargers, holding them to 75 yards total offense. The Ironmen racked up four sacks and four tackles for losses.
“It’s just hard work at practice,” Price said. “It’s dedication that we had tonight. A lot of the plays we work on we executed on a lot of stuff. What we practice worked.”
Price praised his teammate Barksdale.
“He’s phenomenal,” Price said. “He always plays good every game. There’s a reason he’s D-1.”
After Barksdale’s opening touchdown, Steel Valley extended its lead when it forced the Chargers to punt and the ball was snapped over the punter’s head into the back of the end zone for a safety. That made the score 9-0.
The Ironmen tacked on more in the second quarter when Terec Seibles took one to the outside and juked a defender and then sped to the house on a 46-yard touchdown run to go up 16-0.
Price boosted Steel Valley’s lead to 23-0, returning a fumble 60 yards for a touchdown. The play was somewhat controversial as many believed that Price was down when he picked up the fumble, then got up and ran with it.
Barksdale then did what he’s hoping to do in the secondary for Pitt as he picked off a Fabian Nixon pass and turned it into a 72-yard pick six to go up 29-0 going into halftime.
The Ironmen tallied two more scores after a second errand snap over the OLSH punter’s head resulted in another safety.
Tyson Barron ran one in from 2 yards out to extend the Steel Valley lead to 38-0.
OLSH’s Talen Ellis scored on a 28-yard touchdown to end the scoring.
“When you get off schedule like that, things like that happen,” Militzer said. “I’ve said all year, this is kind of what our trajectory has been. We’re an inexperienced team at the beginning of the year. Some weeks we come out and just everything clicks. Other weeks we’re figuring things out.”
Even though the team didn’t click against Steel Valley, OLSH still has two games left with a shot at the playoffs.
“We play a lot of different kids, and I’m really proud of them, because even though there were some unfortunate things that happened, they played ball to the very last whistle, and they played hard and they played under control,” Militzer said. “We’ve got to wash this one off, and we’re in a position now where we’ve got to probably win these last two and try to get into playoffs.”
Photos by Mike Longo Jr.
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