Golden Knights impress on both sides in shutout of Upper Dublin

WESTTOWN >> You can’t start the District 1 Class 5A playoffs any better than West Chester Rustin did Friday night.
The Golden Knights rushed for 222 yards and the Rustin defense held No. 10 Upper Dublin — the reigning District 1 champion — to just 85 yards of total offense, running away with a crisp 23-0 victory that put the Golden Knights into the second round next Friday against a familiar foe: second-seeded West Chester East.
West Chester Rustin (8-3) started the game by going on an 11-play, 67-yard touchdown drive that featured all running plays. When Nick Madonna went between the tackles for a 10-yard touchdown run it was a 7-0 game, and six minutes and thirty seconds of the first quarter were gone. Madonna had a big night, racking up 146 yards on 22 carries.
“We got a lot of confidence with that first drive,” Madonna said. “We try to establish the run and we did that on the opening drive. We made a couple of mistakes on offense but overall it was a very crisp effort for us.”
The Rustin defense was shutting down the Upper Dublin (6-5) offense as the Golden Knights held the Cardinals to negative-two yards and only 14 offensive plays in the first half. In turn, that put the pressure on the Upper Dublin defense all night to keep the score down and give its offense a chance.
The Golden Knights went on another long drive in the second quarter that was more of the same: a punishing Rustin ground attack. Quarterback John Crispino dove over the pile for a 1-yard touchdown run and it was a 14-0 Golden Knight lead at halftime.
“We try to establish the run every game,” West Chester Rustin head coach Mike St. Clair said. “We did a nice job running the ball tonight. And our defense, which has carried us all year, came up with two big stops for us in the second half.”
One of those stops came after Upper Dublin took the second-half kickoff and drove the ball down the field behind sophomore signal-caller Tristan Cairns. Cairns hit a 14-yard third-down pass to Micah Bootman to put the ball on the Rustin 5-yard line. But, four straight cracks into the Golden Knights defense did not get the Cardinals a score, and Rustin took over at the one after a seven-minute Upper Dublin drive.
“We really came up with big plays there after they drove down the field.” St. Clair said.
Rustin could not move the football, and a short 14-yard punt put Upper Dublin in good shape again, deep in Golden Knights territory. The Cardnials went to a fourth and 11 but Cairns’ pass was dropped and the Golden Knights held up again.
Rustin got two more points on a safety when the Upper Dublin punter elected to step out of the back of the end zone to make it a 16-0 after Madonna fumbled on the goal line and the Golden Knights defense forced a three and out.
Then, after the Cardinals kicked off to the Rustin 49-yard line, the Golden Knights went on a seven-play, 51-yard scoring drive led by the running of Madonna and Drew Gallen.
Rustin put the game away with 3:29 to play when Crispino hit Isaac Fisher with a pretty 17-yard touchdown pass over the middle and it was a nice and tidy 23-0 victory over the team that beat the Golden Knights in the 5A title game last year.
“I was really happy with the effort tonight,” St. Clair said. “The kids overcame a lot of injuries to key people this year and we are still playing. We try to play mistake-free, penalty-free football and tonight we made a couple of penalties I was not happy with.”
Upper Dublin, which lost starting quarterback Mike Slivka in Week 4 to injury and had six other starters go down, played hard until the final whistle.
“The kids were amazing this season to reach the playoffs,” Upper Dublin head coach Bret Stover said. “They just never made excuses and it was next man up. And the assistant coaches put things together play by play. I was very proud of this group and they battled very hard all year and tonight.”