By Bill Albright

With more than 500 yards of offense, the Hurricanes advanced to the WPIAL Class AAA quarterfinals.

BUTLER, Pa. — All the New Castle High football team wanted was another shot at Indiana.

Friday night at Butler High Stadium, the Hurricanes made the most of their opportunity.

After losing 27-18 to Indiana in the second game of the regular season, the Hurricanes turned the tables on the Little Indians with a 55-49 shootout win in the quarterfinal round of the WPIAL Class AAA tournament.

The Hurricanes advance to the semifinals and will play top-seeded Thomas Jefferson next Friday at a site to be determine by conference officials. Thomas Jefferson advanced with a 35-16 win over Hopewell.

“That was one of the most physical games we have been involved in a for a long, long time,” New Castle coach Frank Bongivengo said. “I have to give all the credit to Indiana and their staff because they have some tough-nosed kids over there and they weren’t about to give up the ship either.

“That was just an epic battle between two quality football teams.”

The game was much like a heavyweight fight with the last team having the ball destined to win.

As it turned out for the Hurricanes, they had the final quality possession and they made the most of it by scoring the game’s final touchdown.

After Indiana tied the game at 49-all with 6:28 remaining, the Hurricanes took over on their 23.

Eleven plays and 77 yards later, Keith Keene scored the game-winner on a fourth-and-1 from the Indiana 3-yard line.

Other than coming out on top of the nailbiter, the good news for New Castle was their offensive efforts that netted more than 500 yards total offense.

However, on the other side of the ball, the Little Indians also put up a big offense total of 360 yards.

Although the final score of the first game might not have indicated it, Bongivengo said the Hurricanes didn’t handle the Indiana offense in the first meeting either.

“They rushed for around 400 yards the first time around so I guess we didn’t handle it very well then either,” Bongivengo said. “That was a major concern of ours and we thought we had a pretty good game plan coming in tonight.

“But that [Indiana quarterback Ben] Fiscus can run that offense like nobody’s business,” Bongivengo said. “Half the time, you don’t even know who has the football. We will go back to the drawing board and hopefully, we can find a way not to let that happen again.”

Leading the Hurricane offense was quarterback Michael Bongivengo with 197 yards rushing and another 112 passing. Keith Keene wasn’t far behind Bongivengo with 188 yards.

“We have been able to move the ball well for much of the season,” Bongivengo said. “Other than the Blackhawk game, nobody has been able to stop us consistently and it was no different tonight. We just have to figure out a way to get some stops on defense.”

Other than not being able to stop Indiana’s offense, the other factor in the game was the penalty situation that saw the Hurricanes flagged 13 times for nearly 100 yards.

“The penalties were terrible. We can’t afford to play football like that,” the coach said. “We made some other mistakes, but we have to find a way to get away from those penalties.”

Quarterback Bongivengo scored four touchdowns in the wild game. Keene adding a pair of scores including the eventual game-winner.

“Our defense had trouble stopping them, but we were still able to grind it out, get some turnovers and most importantly, win the game,” the younger Bongivengo said. “They made some big plays too, but our offense kept the wheels turning and that is all we needed.”

With the Hurricanes leading 55-49, Indiana had one final chance to pull the game out, but 14 yards on two running plays to go along with four incomplete passes ended the final threat.