Chartiers Valley quarterbacks Santino Coury and Justin Burda ran an option offense that was too much for No. 5 Trinity to handle, and host Chartiers Valley defeated the Hillers, 44-17, on Friday night in a WPIAL Class AAA Big Seven matchup. Coury rushed for 87 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries, and Burda recorded 52 yards rushing and 100 yards passing, including a touchdown. Chartiers Valley running back Jim Riley provided another threat in the backfield, rushing for 74 yards and two touchdowns. He also recovered a Trinity (2-2, 0-1) fumble and returned it 15 yards for a touchdown with 6:54 remaining in the game to seal the win for No. 7 Chartiers Valley (3-1, 2-0). “It’s a difficult offense to stop when it’s executed properly, and for the most part, we executed tonight,” Chartiers Valley coach Chris Saluga said. “We invested a lot of time in our offense. We think we have the right players running it, and when you have the right players and the right timing, it’s going to go well.” After leading, 27-17, at the end of the third quarter, Chartiers Valley scored 17 points in a span of 1 minute, 4 seconds midway through the fourth. Kicker Jeff Krek converted a 33-yard field goal before Coury rushed for a 5-yard touchdown and Riley reached the end zone on a fumble return Chartiers Valley put together another rally when it scored two touchdowns in the final 2 1/2 minutes of the second quarter to take a 20-10 lead at halftime. Chartiers Valley receiver Corey O’Patchen caught a 59-yard touchdown pass from Burda to give the Colts a 13-10 advantage at the 2:34 mark of the second quarter. With 19 seconds remaining in the half, Chartiers Valley linebacker Devin Greene returned an interception 70 yards for a touchdown. “The play that sticks in my mind right now is Devin Greene’s interception return when it was still a very close game,” Saluga said. “Trinity was driving, and he’s our senior captain, and those are the kinds of plays you expect from a senior captain. He made a great play, and that was really the turning point of the game.” Trinity running back Mike Yancich, a Penn State linebacker recruit, gave his team ome momentum when he scored on a 91-yard touchdown run at the 2:58 mark of the second quarter, but Chartiers Valley responded with two touchdowns. Before leaving the game midway through the third quarter with what Yancich said he thought was a knee sprain, Yancich rushed for 165 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries. Trinity quarterback Ian Haley completed 5 of 12 passes for 87 and an interception as the Hillers, previously considered one of the top teams in Class AAA, dropped to .500. “We know we have no secondary back, and we know that,” Trinity coach Ed Dalton said. “What we haven’t done is done a good job of keeping ourselves in perspective. I can’t control what other people say about us. I keep telling us that we got a long way to go and stuff. Obviously, yeah, we’re disappointed.”

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