MECHANICSBURG, PA — This was in the works for a year. As soon as Roman Catholic walked off Cumberland Valley High School’s Chapman Field last December with its collective heads down after an overtime loss, the Cahillites vowed to get back to the PIAA Class 5A state championship and rectify what they missed.
On Saturday night, they did, winning the first PIAA state championship in school history, beating defending state champ Bishop McDevitt rather handily, 28-6, behind three Semaj Beals’ touchdown passes.
“This may take some time to sink in,” Roman Catholic coach Rick Prete said. “This is something we began building towards when I first got here. This is like taking a deep breath and it feels great being the first to do this. This will sink in more in the coming days. I have to show respect to (McDevitt) Coach Jeff Weachter. I learned a lot from guys like him, and what he has done in his career.
“These kids for me and my coaching staff, it is never about the athlete, it is about people and who these kids are. It is beyond football. I wanted to build a brotherhood here, and once it’s developing young people into men, and if you show up as team against the brotherhood, we were going to beat that team.”
Roman took a year of frustration out on the Crusaders scoring 28 unanswered points and causing four turnovers. McDevitt did not score until the final minutes of the game.
The Cahillites outgained McDevitt 334 to 280, with much of the Crusaders’ yards coming the final quarter with the game well decided. The biggest difference was McDevitt turned the ball over four times, losing two fumbles and on two interceptions.
“It is unbelievable what we accomplished this year,” Weachter said. “I lot of people gave us up for dead when we lost our first two games this year, we got better and better each week. We won 12-straight games and beat a lot of really good teams. We beat a good State College team last week. Last week took a little out of us, but that’s not to take anything away from (Roman).
“They came out and they wanted it, and they played like they wanted it. They played like we played in 2022.”
Roman scored on three of five drives in the first half to take a 21-0 lead. Beals completed 18 of 26 for 231 yards and first-half touchdown passes to Hanif Sheed and Ash Roberts, and third-quarter TD pass to Eyan Stead, including a touchdown run himself on Roman’s opening drive.
“We came into this game with a lot of confidence that no one could stop us,” Beals said. “We all believe in each other. We knew we would get back here again to the state championship, and we were not going to waste the chance this time. I remember what it was like walking off that field last year, seeing our seniors go out like that. We were determined not to let it happen again.”
That came right from the start, when Beals dropped back and hit Roberts with a 55-yard bomb on Roman’s first play of the game. McDevitt had problems keeping up with Roman’s speed, as did most teams the Cahillites faced this season.
The game was never in question.
Roman took its first possession 79 yards over six plays, topped off by a Beals’ seven-yard scramble for a touchdown. After Julian Enoch recovered a McDevitt fumble at the Crusaders’ 33, Roman went up 14-0 on a short flip pass to Sheed. When Roman junior linebacker Walter Hudson came up to make a stop on Crusaders’ quarterback Sebastian Williams on a fourth-and-one at the Roman 46 late in the first half, Beals looked for Roberts again, hitting him with a 40-yard touchdown pass with 1:53 left in the half.
“We knew we could them deep,” Beals said. “This was great coming back here and winning this. We can say that this team is part of Roman Catholic football history. This school has been around forever. We are the first football team to come away with a state title. Other Roman teams will come along and win state championships after we leave, but we can always say that we were the first.
“There will always be something special about that.”
Scoring Summary
(District 3) Bishop McDevitt (12-2) 0 0 0 6-6
(District 12) Roman Catholic (12-3) 7 14 7 0-28
1st Quarter
RC – Semaj Beals 7 run (Eli Pollack kick), 7:33
2nd Quarter
RC – Hanif Sheed 7 pass from Beals (Pollack kick), 10:37
RC – Ash Roberts 40 pass from Beals (Pollack kick), 1:53
3rd Quarter
RC – Eyan Stead 1 pass from Beals (Pollack kick), 1:16
4th Quarter
BM – Gage Ruth 24 pass from Sebastian Williams, 1:12