Archbishop Wood surges past Harrisburg for PIAA Class 5A title

HERSHEY >> Football isn’t a game that exists in textbooks or on paper but the way Archbishop Wood plays football, and specifically the way it wins football games is as beautiful as any math formula or equation out there; and nearly as fail proof.

Wood’s formula consists of something like establish a run game with excellent line play + smothering hard nose defense + a team game = victory. While every team can and for the most part tries to use this where Wood excels is controlling its variables.

“It’s a football game. It’s a four-quarter game,” Wood coach Steve Devlin said. “We made plays, we got stops. We talked all week — it’s a game of possessions. Get them off, make them punt, we win that possession. If we win enough possessions we win the game.”

The Vikings lifted the PIAA Class 5A state title Friday night with a 37-10 win over Harrisburg, a modest win for the Vikings.

“I couldn’t be more proud of this group of kids,” Devlin said. “For this group of seniors to come out and win a state championship, playing in their last high school game. They’re such a great group of kids. I’m so proud to be their coach.”

Harrisburg scored on the first play from scrimmage as Yahmir Wilkerson connected with Shaquon Anderson-Butts for a 71-yard touchdown. This marked the first time since Wood lost to St Joseph’s Prep back in mid-September that Wood trailed in a game.

It didn’t take much time for the Vikings to answer as they drove the field for a touchdown drive capped by a 10-yard touchdown pass from Jack Colyer to Kyle Pitts. The pass was one of only two passes completed by Colyer on the night.

“That drive was telling,” Devlin said. “After they scored on that broken play, the way we drove down the field and scored I knew we were going to win the game.”

The reason for Colyer completing only two passes and attempting only five was once again the backfield tandem of Raheem Blackshear and Shawn Thompson.

“We knew we were going to give (Blackshear) the ball,” Devlin said. “That’s what we’ve done the past couple weeks and we got two great running backs…This time of year, it’s December, we live in Pennsylvania, you better be able to run the football if you want to win games.”

Per usual, Blackshear, the man they call Speedy, took the lead as the tailback ran for 236 yards on 35 carries scoring three touchdowns while Thompson thumped his way to 134 yards and a touchdown on 17 totes.

“Me and Shawn are good friends and we know we’re going to split the ball a lot so it helps both of us knowing we’re going to capitalize when we get the ball,” Blackshear said.

Blackshear and Thompson will go down as one of the most dynamic rushing attacks in school history. And that’s saying something for a program that has produced backfields with Brandon and Desmond Peoples and two years ago featured Jarrett McClenton, the program’s all-time and single season record holder, who shared the backfield with the likes of Alex Arcangeli and Josh Messina.

It would be nearly impossible and frankly unfair to compare Blackshear and Thompson to any of the other tandems in recent history but the bottom line is they were key pieces to a formula that won a state championship and that is a universal truth.