Southern Columbia ends season with 15-game winning streak and another title
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Southern Columbia’s 15th straight victory netted a record 15th PIAA football championship as the Tigers routed Farrell 43-22 Friday afternoon in the Class 2A championship at Cumberland Valley’s Chapman Field.
Southern scored a pair of touchdowns in the final 4 1/3 minutes of the first half to lead 28-8 at intermission.
The Tigers’ lone loss came in the season-opener to Wyomissing, 49-27.
The Tigers (15-1) used a balanced rushing attack to pile up 351 yards on the ground. They held District 10 champ Farrell to minus-34 yards rushing, which included four sacks for minus-49 yards. Farrell was held to negative rushing yards in each of the four quarters.
Southern got 110 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries from Grady Garcia and 71 rushing yards on nine carries from quarterback Ayden Hockenbroch, who completed each of his four passes.
Garcia scored on runs of 32, 25, and 1 yards. Joey Williams rushed for 95 yards and scored on a 4-yard run. Brayden Andrews rushed for 86 yards on 22 carries and scored on runs of 4 and 5 yards.
Farrell answered Southern’s game-opening touchdown drive with a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Jadon King-Vincent. The Steelers took their only lead at 8-6 on Juelz Johnson’s two-point conversion run.
Aaron Pegues connected on passes of 15 and 3 yards to Johnson for the Steelers’ other touchdowns. Pegues completed 13-of-26 passes for 202 yards, 165 of it in the second half.
Wyomissing used a 28-point third-quarter explosion to break open its Aug. 25 game at Catawissa. Marcus Armistead’s Pick-6 started the rout and Justice Hardy followed with scoring runs of 62 and 91 yards, his second and third TDs of the game. Hardy rushed for 197 yards as the Spartans improved their series record to 3-0 over Southern.
Southern Columbia’s run of seven consecutive titles ended last year to eventual 2A champion Troy. The Tigers have won six titles in Class A and nine in Class 2A since moving up a class, all under head coach Jim Roth, the winningest coach in Pennsyvania football history.
The win avenged back-to-back losses to Farrell in the Class A final in 1995 and 1996. Farrell was quarterbacked at the time by Amp Peques, who’s now the Steelers head coach and the father of quarterback Aaron Pegues.
