East Allegheny spoils homecoming for Deer Lakes with a 42-7 win

RUSSELLTON, Pennsylvania - Deer Lakes has not made the WPIAL Football Playoffs since 2015 but the Lancers had a chance on Friday tonight to clinch a playoff berth at home with a win over East Allegheny.

However, the Wildcats had other ideas and took home a 42-7 road win to put a damper on the Deer Lakes homecoming celebration.

A great offensive and defensive performance by quarterback/defensive back Michael Cahill, who threw four touchdowns passes, and a three-touchdown performance by Amir Rollins helped East Allegheny (6-2, 2-1) defeat Deer Lakes (2-1, 4-4) in the WPIAL 3A Allegheny 6 Conference Matchup.

The Wildcats struck early in the first quarter when Cahill threw a slant pass to Brennan Rutledge that resulted in a 70-yard touchdown. Later in the quarter, Rollins rushed for his first touchdown of the game extending the Wildcats’ lead to 14-0.

“We just wanted to show them [Deer Lakes] why you should not pick us for your Homecoming games because we wanted revenge after they defeated us last season,” Rutledge said. “The game plan was to beat them with speed and on defense we wanted to stop the pass game.”

Deer Lakes got back into the game when quarterback Derek Burk connected with Wayne Love for a 58-yard touchdown to trim the Wildcats lead to 14-7. But for Burk, who completed 12 of 18 passes for 155 yards, that was the only drive in which he and the rest of his Lancers teammates would put up points in the game. Junior Ryan Cochran led the Lancers in receiving recording eight receptions for 71 yards.

In the second quarter, after avoiding multiple sacks and scrambling across the field, Cahill threw a long pass of 67 yards to Steve Yusko to make it 21-7. Cahill threw for 243 yards in the game.

Then, late in the second quarter, a game-changing play allowed East Allegheny to keep the momentum.

The Wildcats ran a fake punt and Cahill threw a pass to Rutledge, who was tackled a yard short of the first down, but Deer Lakes was flagged for a late hit out of bounds. The penalty gave the Wildcats a new set of downs that later resulted in Cahill throwing a 33-yard touchdown pass to Rollins to give East Allegheny a 28-7 lead at halftime.

Deer Lakes got the ball to begin the second half and was able to get into the redzone but a fumble by the Lancers was recovered by Cahill and the Lancers could not recover after that.

Cahill also recorded two sacks on the defensive side for the Wildcats.

Rollins rushed for an 84-yard touchdown and Cahill threw another touchdown pass to Rutledge in the fourth quarter.

Rollins, a junior, transferred from Penn Hills to East Allegheny and if the Wildcats make the playoffs, he will not be able to play because of the PIAA transfer rule. The rule indicates that any student-athlete who transfers as a sophomore, junior or senior will be ineligible for postseason play for one year in all sports they had competed in prior to the transfer.

“I’m really happy for Amir. He came from Penn Hills and came ready to play with us as soon as he got here,” Rutledge said. “His speed is really crazy and him scoring three touchdowns was crazy.”

As for Rollins, he was quick to credit others for his performance in the game but also felt like the Wildcats could have played better.

“It felt great to get the win,” Rollins said. “I thank my offensive linemen and the coaches for helping me score three touchdowns, but I feel like our performance was decent, we could’ve executed on a lot more plays.”

East Allegheny will host Knoch next week and with Rollins only having two games left to play in the regular season, he will try to help the team to win in any way that he can.

“It would mean everything to us winning WPIAL and PIAA 3A titles, that is our main goal,” Rollins said. “We have to be discipline and mentally tough, we have to be 100% at practice staying locked in at all times.”