Rustin Wins District Title in Third Year of Program
Written by: Paul Dale Plattenburg on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008. Follow Paul Dale Plattenburg on Twitter.
Traditionally it takes 5-7 years for a new high school football program to even start to assert itself.
Bayard Rustin did it in its second year with a 8-4 record, runner-up finish in the Ches-Mont American Division and a berth in the District 1 AAA playoffs.
In the third year of the program Rustin can now lay claim to the Ches-Mont American Divsion championship AND the District 1 AAA championship as a last minute goal line stand held up in a 21-14 win over Upper Moreland Friday nite at Colonial Stadium on the campus of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in Plymouth Meeting.
“It’s great,” said Rustin’s Chase Hoyt, one of the defensive heroes on the last minute goal line stand by knocking a Mike Rosenbaum first and goal pass away. “I’ve been playing football for seven years and this is just the best feeling I’ve had,” he added.
“It feels great,” said Golden Knight Head Coach Mike St. Clair after getting the traditional water bucket doucing from Will Ridgeway and Rondell White when asked how wet he felt.
White scored the game winning touchdown with 4:42 to play in the game on a 8 yard run that capped a 63 yard 8 White carry drive. White finished the game with 193 yards on 38 carries.
“Coach said I didn’t need to break a big run, just get 4-5 yards a carry and thats what i was trying to do.” said White. White longest carry of the night was a 20 yard run.
Lost in all the excitement was the fact that Rustin (12-1) avenged their only loss of the season as the Golden Bears (10-2 overall) beat them 13-7 in double overtime in the second game of the season.
Rustin rushed out to a 14-0 lead on the strength of both Rondell White and his younger brother Rahmir.
Rondell scored the first touchdown of the game for the Golden Knights on a 3 yard run the second time Rustin touched the football with 1:15 left in the first quarter. Rahmir (10 carries 91 yards) scored the second touchdown on a 14 yard run in the second quarter, just 4:03 ater his brother scored. Will Mau booted all 3 extra points, but also had a 33 yard field goal blocked by Dmirti Young in the third quarter that ignited Upper Moreland.
Stifled by the usually stingy Rustin defense in the first half, the Golden Bears came alive in the second half.
On the first play following the blocked field goal Rosenbaum found Tom Knox wide open at mid-field and Knox out-ran both White’s to the end zone for an 80 yard touchdown that cut the Golden Knight lead to 14-6.
After a high snap forced Rondell, who is also the punter to attempt a run, Upper Moreland tied the game at 14 as Chris Smallwood scored on a 5 yard run with 8:48 left in the contest to cut the lead 14-12. Smallwood added the 2 point conversion and suddenly we had a football game. Smallwood finished with 133 yards on 27 carries after being held to 12 carries and 37 yards in the fist half.
Give Coach (Adam) Beach credit, he called an outstanding game all night over there,” said St. Clair.
Following White’s go ahead touchdown Upper Moreland took the ball on their own 35 yard line and drove 60 yards down to the Rustin 5 yard line with 8 seconds remaining. But in the drive, Smallwood was injured and never returned. Hoyt knocked away the first Rosenbaum pass and Ronye Dennis dropped the second down pass. With two-tenth of a second left, this reporter was thinking draw play to try to catch the defense off guard and the call was correct as fullback Christian Kehoe got the ball but was stuffed at the line of scrimmage and the wild celebration began.
With the win, Rustin now plays District 12 Champion Archbishop Wood next Friday Nite back at Colonial Stadium at 7:00 p.m. while Upper Moreland still has their annual Thanksgiving Day game with neighboring Hatboro Horsham Thursday Morning.
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January 18th, 2019 at 9:13 pm
It wasn’t a Draw. It was a Trap play. Sorry that it took me 10 years to see this but it was a tough loss. Kind of haunts me and will forever haunt me. FYI I was number 64 on the Bears side.
November 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Such venom from a school in West Chester!! LOL Where are your manners? I wasn’t being mean, I gave your team its props, you should hope we win. That you lost to the state champs. Knighttime, you just cursed Selinsgrove since that is exactly what you said Rustin would do to WOOD.
THANKS!!!!
November 29th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Get a life Woody. You’re a L-O-S-E-R and everyone knows it. Selinsgrove will destroy Wood next week. Is that the apology you were looking for?
November 29th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Wow, no need to be d*ck. Just be happy that a recruiting team that had two weeks to prepare beat a three-year program. Show some class, geese.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I am waiting for the apologies boys. Come on, there is no shame in losing to a great team. Your team fought valiantly, but as I said, WOOD is playing great football right now and will be VERY difficult to beat.
November 27th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Spread offense??? We have a 1500 yard rusher and an 1200 yard passer, is that is spread? Maybe spread out, unlike Rustin!! We only played 1 pub team all year! You are right about the talent in the catholic League. Our point allowed is screwed up by a 3 OT game aginst Pennridge. They only scored 14 points on our D and return an INT for the tying score. That was without our QB. Rustin has not seen a team with an equally strong offense and defense. How many teams has Rustin played that avg. 35 points scored and only 9 against.
November 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
How does beating bad team big time not make you overconfident? That doesn’t even make sense. However as a fan, you can be biased…Rustin allowed the fewest points for AAA in the entire state until like Week 8 and for the entire regular season are tied with Emmaus for fewest points allowed. Your spread offense is no match to Rustin’s smash-mouth offense. Wood is good, and Rustin will not underestimate them, but don’t go around thinking Wood is hot stuff when they come out of a weak D12 with below average public schools and a few Catholic schools where all of the talent is concentrated.
November 26th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Trust me, the palyers are far from over confident, which is demonstrated by how we have crushed most of the teams on our schedule. The kids take no one lightly. However, as a fan I can be honest. Wood has supperior team speed, a much more diverse offense, a great kicker, the number ranked defense in the Catholic League including 4A schools and a great coaching staff. That is what I base my observations on. No one take D12 seriously, and thats fine. However, after this weekend they WILL!!!!!
November 26th, 2008 at 12:11 am
no one from rustin has said anything about wood being bad obviously if youve made it to the final 8 your a good football team. well it seems like your a little over confident..which is fine if thats what wood is all about but friday night you will see the same golden knights youve seen all year. a blue collar football team that just wants to win football games
November 25th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
It sounds like the KOOLAID is in the water out in West Chester!!! I will say that Friday night will be interesting. For WCR who said Upper Moreland was “very good”, please we would have beaten their sorry O-D lines like Red headed Step Children. They are SOFT!!! Rustin better come ready to play smash mouth because they certainly can’t throw the ball!!! LOL That being said, I look forward to seeing all of you there Friday night, and it should be much warmer than last Friday night, sorry your tears won’t freeze before hitting the ground!!!! LOL
November 25th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Woodman is a hater
November 25th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Losing to a team does not make you great, Woodman. Otherwise, there would be a hundred ‘great’ teams out there just because they lost someone who made the playoffs. So I suggest abandoning your West Catholic argument, and stop comparing Rustin to Palisades.
Wood has faced pretty good teams, and so has Rustin. Rustin basically played all of the teams that were in D1 AAA playoffs and beat them, including a very good Upper Moreland team, a Pottsgrove with one of the better backfields in Eastern PA, and a very underrated, perennial Strath Haven team. Wood has faced the same Catholic schools that they beat earlier in the season, and once you figure out how to beat a team good, it’s pretty easy to do it again.
Rustin fans are just happy Rustin gets some recognition after being disregarded for most of the season by other papers and writers. Wood has had the Inquirer writing about them forever. We’ll just see which is the better team on Friday. Good luck Wood, you’ll need it.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
To Woodman: We won’t take your team lightly. You wouldn’t be playing this game if you weren’t a good team. Our most important game is our next game. Rustin will look no further than Wood. Rustin will go into the game confident that they will beat Wood. If they didn’t think they would win, they wouldn’t show up. But they will be there; fired up and ready to play some smash mouth football. And I will tell you, Wood better be ready. I’ve seen many Rustin games and they are strong on both sides of the ball. As with Wood, they wouldn’t be at this point if they weren’t very good. Both teams have played good teams and both have played bad teams. You can throw out strength of schedule when you get to the State quarter finals. The better team will win. All of West Chester is confident that will be Rustin.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
hey woody do you really think that district 12 compares in the coaching and programs of district 1 really? you can be as tough and athletic as you want and lose to a team with better coaching and discipline. who did wood play in the playoffs landsdale catholic they had 5 losses how do they make the playoffs? unionville would of made the playoffs in district 12 that means buddy. And you had a bye in the playoffs? No team in the playoffs for ditrict 12 has one loss or better and in district one there is only one team with three losses and 3 with only one loss. That just shows that district 12 doesnt have enough good teams and district 1 has too many. I think its you who are taking district one too lightly there woody. hey woody say hi to buzz for me will ya.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Woodman–When I did a look through at both schedules, I would have given Rustin a very slight edge. Maybe like a 51 1/2-48 1/2 edge on strength of schedule. Now according to the web site you produced, it is probably a 51 1/2-48 1/2 edge for Wood, but not by the big margin you are making it out to be. The one game that probably makes the difference for you is the West Catholic game. If you look at Hendo, yes they had 5 losses but they also beat D-town West and Great Valley who have a combined record of 19-5. Now 4 of your wins are against Lansdale Catholic and Conwell Egan who are a combined 11-10. So personally I think we can throw strength of schedule out the window. And all I’m going to say is that BOTH TEAMS SHOULDN’T take the other lightly.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
For all of the Rustin fans who think they played a superior schedule to Wood look at this site and checkout the SOS rating (strength of schedule)andyou will see that our schedule was much more difficult.
http://www.fp.tv/teams/ratings/pg/hs/389
November 24th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Pennridge made the playoffs and we did not have our QB or film on them. Unionville did not even make the playoffs. How can a team with 10 yards passing all season play a team like Wood? Cinderella midnight has struck!!!!
November 24th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
oh you forgot to mention your loss to pennridge who has 5 losses. yea we won by 1 you lost by 1 to a 5 loss team.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Do the programs or coaching in the “west” compare to the programs and coaching in District 1 really? You can be as tough or talented as you want and not be able to beat a better coached and a team with better discipline and technique. who did wood play in the playoffs landsdale catholic (5 losses)? and why is catholic in the play offs no one in district one even got into the playoffs with more then 3 losses and there is only one and you got a bye last week in the playoffs? that just shows they’re are not enough good teams in district 12. There aren’t even any teams with one loss or better in district 12? you taking us to lightly is what it sounds like is happening.Don’t try to say district 12 is better then district 1.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Do you really think that any of those teams compare to West or the rest of the city schools in toughness? Henderson lost 5 games, Unionville lost 4 and you won by 1 point. All I am saying is that it is possible that District 1 in Chester and Delco is having a down year. Even in AAAA, North Penn and Neshaminy are in the finals. Neshaminy beat Garnet Valley and Ridley!! Don’t take District 12 as lightly as Palisades did!!
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
compare rustins strength of schedule to woods. rustin beat unionville, henderson, great valley, pottsgrove, upper moreland and strath haven all good teams. no doubt friday night will be a great game and a battle…good luck both squads
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Has anyone at this site ever seen Wood play? Rustin’s fans talk about the lack of respect, Wood has crushed everyone in its path since there loss to West Catholic, who everyone is finding out is GREAT!! Wood held them to 28 points and looking back that is great. No disrespect to Rustin but Wood is the one who has been overlooked all year.
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
yea baby nobody ever gave rustin any respect or recognition now finally they get to prove they deserved it. way to go boys keep it up.
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
WE WANT STATES!!!!!!
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
great win guys keep up the hard work it will pay off!!!