(Acrisure Stadium - Pittsburgh PA) - The Clairton defense stands tall with a fumble recovery in final 3 minutes and the Bears win their 15th title in an 8-6 Class A WPIAL Championship victory over the Laurel Spartans.
The Bears turned the ball over four times in the first half in their own territory, but did not allow Laurel to capitalize with points from the takeaways.
Clairton's Jeff Thompson connected with Brandon Murphy on a 13 yard touchdown pass with 36 seconds to play in the first half. Donte Wright punched in the two-point conversion to make it 8-0 Bears.
Clairton took 7 minutes off the clock in the third quarter and looked like they took a two score lead on a 4th down touchdown, but an offensive pass interference negated the touchdown and the score remained 8-0, headed to the 4th quarter.
Clairton had a short punt give Laurel great field position in plus territory. The Spartans had the ball at the Clairton 41 yard-line. The Spartans moved the ball to the Clairton 5 on their ground game and a couple of pass interference penalties on the Bears. The Spartans punched in their first points of the game on a Nathan Hill 5 yard touchdown. The Spartans were a two-point conversion away from tying the game.
The Bears defense all year had been their identity, they allowed just 19 points in the regular season. They denied Laurel on the two-point try and the score remained 8-6 Bears with under 10 minutes to play in the game.
Laurel's defense turned Clairton over on downs on a 4th and 14 fake punt with under 4 minutes to go. Laurel had the ball at the Bears 21.
Clairton linebacker Brandon Murphy forced a fumble from Laurel running back Kolton Carlson, and Donte Wright recovered the ball with under 2 minutes and 30 seconds to play.
"It was huge, it's a testamanet to what we've been able to do all year defensivley, the guys went in there grinding, the way they have a kicker there, they may win with a field goal. Testament to my defense today, they really played football. It was a great game," said head coach Wayne Wade to KDKA Radio's Donny Chedrick.
Clairton ran out the clock and captured their 15th WPIAL Championship, the second most in WPIAL history behind only Aliquippa.