WVSSAC Super Six Football Championships

Big Reds win 11th state football title
Sunday, December 2, 2007
By DAVE POE- The Parkersburg News & The Parkersburg Sentinel

There’s pandemonium in Parkersburg.

The Parkersburg High School Big Reds — after 103 years of playing football — have won back-to-back state championships for the first time.

The 2007 team etched its name in the record books Saturday at Wheeling Island Stadium with a hard-fought 22-15 win over St. Albans to finish a 13-1 season that comes on the heels of last year’s perfect 14-0 campaign.

The 11th state title for the School of Champions allows PHS to tie defunct Ceredo-Kenova for the most state football championships won by any state school.

‘‘Back-to-back state championships,” said coach Bernie Buttrey, the 2007 West Virginia High School Coach of the Year. ‘‘That says it all.’’

Saturday’s title didn’t come easy. St. Albans (12-2) made an early statement when it won the coin toss, elected to receive the ball and held it for 12 plays, driving 80 yards for a 6-0 lead. It was the type of drive Parkersburg had been making all season.

But Parkersburg couldn’t do anything right early on. The Big Reds finished the first quarter with just four total yards and no first downs.

And things got worse for PHS before they finally got better.

On the first play of the second quarter, Gary Fleck of St. Albans burst through the PHS line and blocked a Big Red punt into the PHS end zone. It was going to be a race for the ball to determine if the Red Dragons were going to get a safety or a touchdown. While Fleck got to the ball first, he couldn’t corral it. He slid through the back of the end zone trying to control the ball, but couldn’t. The officials awarded St. Albans a safety. It was 8-0 Red Dragons with 11:47 to play in the half and Parkersburg appeared to be in some unexpected trouble.

The Big Reds didn’t get moving until taking over at their own 42 with 5:13 left in the half. Quarterback Andy Thomas — forced to go to the air with the ground game sputtering — connected with sophomore Stephen Roush on a 10-yard pass for Parkersburg‘s initial first down of the game, which came just 4:19 before halftime.

That kept alive a drive that eventually would result in the Big Reds’ first score, which came on a perfectly thrown 20-yard pass from Thomas to Wes Ankrom with 52 seconds left in the half. When Thomas connected with Roush on a pass for the two-point conversion, the Big Reds not only had tied the game at 8, but they also had grabbed the momentum heading to halftime.

Parkersburg fed off that momentum to start the second half, pulling off a drive every bit as impressive as the one with which St. Albans began the first half.

Derek Wenzel gave PHS good field position by returning the kickoff to the 34 and the Big Reds needed just nine plays to march 66 yards, march being the right word as this drive took place entirely on the ground with either Matt Lindamood or Thomas accounting for every yard. When Lindamood scored from a yard out with 6:51 left in the third quarter, PHS was ahead 15-8 and would never trail again.

In fact, the Big Reds put on another dominating drive on their next possession, with Thomas finding Roush in the end zone for a 5-yard TD with 38 seconds left in the third quarter. It was 22-8 Parkersburg and what looked like a struggle was starting to resemble a second-half cakewalk.

But St. Albans wasn’t done. The Red Dragons immediately began a 13-play, 73-yard TD march culminating with a fourth down and six touchdown pass from quarterback T.J. Feazelle to Derek Bodie from 9 yards out. It was 22-15 Big Reds with 7:30 to go and a comfortable lead once again became a nervous one.

PHS managed just one first down before turning over the ball back to St. Albans, who took possession at its own 26 with 4:57 to play. The Red Dragons drove to the Big Red 28-yard line with 47 seconds to go. It was fourth down and three.

Feazelle headed up the middle, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Big Red senior linebacker Matt Littleton, who played with a torn MCL, made the biggest stop of the game, tackling Feazelle short of the first down and giving the ball back to PHS, which finally had secured a historic victory.

Littleton’s tackle set off a loud and long celebration in the jam-packed Big Red stands. The Parkersburg contingent outnumbered St. Albans fans by 3-to-1.

Parkersburg had been outrushed (163 yards to 125) and outpassed (79 yards to 51), but the Big Reds won the only statistic that mattered, 22-15.

Lindamood finished with 88 yards on 23 carries while Thomas had 30 yards on 11 tries. Thomas completed five of his eight passes for 51 yards and two TDs and that — plus his defensive play — earned him Parkersburg’s MVP Award.

Markus Guy was the St. Albans workhorse and MVP. The sophomore gained 113 yards on 28 carries. Feazelle completed nine of 15 passes for 79 yards.

It was a well played game in which neither side committed a turnover.

‘‘St. Albans challenged us,” Buttrey said. ‘‘They challenged our coaches at halftime. They saw a few things that we could do differently and they worked.’’

Buttrey noted his team entered the game with numerous injuries, including key ones to Roush, all-American lineman Josh Jenkins and Lindamood, who had a strained ligament.

‘‘This team did it what it takes to win,” Buttrey said. ‘‘That’s why they’re the champions.’’

It’s why they’re the two-time defending champions, something no other PHS class can say.

“103 years of football and nobody has done it,” Buttrey said.

Not until now.