Nathan Smith | Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, TRIB-LIVE
It was the Nick Gizzo show at Tiger Stadium on Friday.
Fox Chapel’s senior quarterback led his squad to a 42-6 win over Moon in a WPIAL Class 5A Allegheny 9 Conference showdown with 312 rushing yards and four total touchdowns.
“We know we run the ball well as a team,” Gizzo said. “That is our strong point. We try to do that every game, and tonight it clicked.”
The win snapped a two-game losing skid for Fox Chapel (2-4, 2-3). The Foxes outgained the Tigers, 504-147.
Fox Chapel took the opening drive 75 yards on seven plays. The series was capped with a Gizzo 21-yard run. The team’s next drive went 87 yards on 12 plays. Micah Morris scored on a 3-yard run to build the lead to 14-0.
“We couldn’t get out of our own way tonight,” Moon coach Ryan Linn said. “They took it to us on the first two drives. It was like the old Mike Tyson quote, ‘What are you going to do after getting hit in the face?’
“We just stood there and kept getting punched in the face for four quarters.”
After shutting down the Tigers offense on their opening drive of the second quarter, Gizzo scored on a 59-yard run. Three minutes later, he weaved in and out of the Moon defense on his way to an 80-yard touchdown run to build a 28-0 lead.
Fox Chapel had not scored 28 points in a game this year.
“We wanted to throw the ball a little bit,” Fox Chapel coach Tom Loughran said. “But as the game wore on, we were having so much success rushing the football, we stuck with it. (Gizzo) did a nice job of making the zone reads we were running and deciding when to keep the ball. Micah did a great job running with his pads down.”
Moon scored late in the first half on a drive that went 42 yards in 14 plays. Cole Konieczka hit Ramon Dean on a 4-yard touchdown strike. The extra point failed, and the Tigers went into the break down 22 points.
“We had penalties that kept some of their drives alive,” Loughran said. “We are hurting ourselves, and we are trying to get away from that. We’re trying to get to a point where we are working with ourselves and not being a detriment moving forward.”
Fox Chapel rounded out its scoring in the third quarter as Gizzo hit Drew Witt on a 23-yard touchdown strike, and Morris added a second score on a 26-yard run.
Morris finished with 95 rushing yards on 12 carries. Fox Chapel is hopeful the win will be a turning point.
“We want to get a playoff spot,” Gizzo said. “We need to keep momentum like this going and win out.”
Konieczka led Moon (3-3, 2-2) with 146 passing yards with a touchdown and an interception. The loss ended a two-game winning streak.
“We told the kids we have four weeks left,” Linn said. “We have four games, and we need to take them one at a time.”