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A line of dried blood had trickled down his nose from a wrap on his forehead as a wide grin crossed his face, both put there by the way Danny Meuser and his Dallas High School football teammates kept fighting back and overcoming obstacles.
Those were clear signs of a steely resolve everyone could see on the outside.
Rich Mannello prefers to look on the inside to find what put his Mountaineers in the PIAA Class 4A semifinals.
“Their heart,” Mannello, Dallas’ fourth-year head coach, said.
Their hearts had to be sinking fast.
The Mountaineers were suddenly behind for the first time in the state quarterfinals, by a point, then almost immediately behind by even more after losing a fumble late in the third quarter.
Even more troubling, they suddenly couldn’t keep Imhotep Charter’s very shifty and super-quick and supremely fast backs from breaking off big plays. Dshaun Seals ran for a 40-yard touchdown. Saint McLeod sped away on a 65-yard scoring run. Kenyatta Kirkland cut through for a couple of two-point conversion runs, twice giving Imhotep a one-point lead in the final 14 minutes.
And after Dallas battled so hard to get control back, taking a 43-36 lead on Lenny Kelley’s six-yard touchdown burst followed by Michael Starbuck’s conversion toss to Dylan Schuster with under two minutes remaining, Imhotep was back threatening to snatch victory away and take off in a blink.
Mainly because McLeod took off on a 32-yard dash on fourth-and-two with 63 seconds to play. Then he went for 14 more on the next play. And Seals caught a nine-yard pass. And in the final 20 seconds, Imhotep was 14 yards away from breaking that Dallas heart.
“Yeah,” admitted Kelley, also a rock-solid linebacker as well as a rock-and-rolling running back, “it was pretty nerve-wracking.”
After all, this was an Imhotep team that destroyed the last three District 2 champions it met in the Class 4A state playoffs — Valley View twice and North Pocono in 2017.
Why should Dallas be any different?
Well, maybe because the Mountaineers are different.
On one play, a kid like Meuser loses a fumble on a play that sets up an Imhotep touchdown, then rips off a 22-yard run right through about six defenders on the next to trigger a Dallas touchdown drive.
“I got sick to my stomach after that play,” Meuser said of the lost screen pass. “Coach put it back in my hands, which I was very happy about.”
The Mountaineers were pretty happy when quarterback Michael Starbuck hit his first nine passes. And when tight end Jack Farrell kept turning short catches into first downs, when he wasn’t catching that 16-yard touchdown pass that gave Dallas a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.
And when Luke Delgaudio made a leaping interception to cut short what looked like a sure Imhotep touchdown drive while playing defensive back, then scored himself on a 16-yard touchdown catch while playing receiver to tie the game at 28-28.
“Big players make big plays,” said Meuser, explaining that he was caught by an opposing spike when his helmet popped off during the game, but never backed off. “We’ve got a lot of big players on this team.”
Like Meuser, who grabbed a little flare from Starbuck and took it 54 yards for a touchdown that gave Dallas a 7-0 lead and announced to everyone the Mountaineers were here to play. And stay, all the way to the end of a 43-36 victory.
The point is, that heart Mannello was talking about beats as one.
“It took every single one of us to win that game,” Farrell said. “And every single one of us will be celebrating that win. It all comes down to who wants it in the fourth quarter.”
The Mountaineers wanted one more stop.
They got it by flushing Imhotep’s quarterback out of the pocket on the final play of the night, keeping him to the right and forcing him to scramble.
In the end, he was short of the first down and short of time, which all ran off the clock.
“I looked at him, he was short of the first down, and the clock was at three zeroes,” Farrell grinned. “That was the first thing I looked at.”
Then they looked at each other, with relief, with respect, with a realization that they were headed to the state semifinals.
They’ll go as one.