CUMBERLAND — Allegany waited for its most important game of the season to deliver its best performance.
Playoff football games often come down to which team makes fewer mistakes, and the Campers committed no turnovers, got off the field on defense in the second half, were the less penalized team and scored a special teams touchdown.
Khiante Bible rushed for 162 yards and two touchdowns, and Allegany romped Mountain Ridge, 35-18, in a Class 1A West Region co-final Saturday at Greenway Avenue Stadium.
The victory vaulted Allegany to the state quarterfinals — the school’s first state playoff berth since 2009.
“The kids played hard, they were physical,” Allegany head coach Bryan Hansel said. “We knew it was going to be a physical game, and I was a little worried before the game. It had a weird vibe.
“When I saw the opening kickoff and we were flying around, I felt good.”
Allegany (6-5) will be seeded No. 8 and at top-seeded Patuxent (7-3) next week. Patuxent is playing its first season in Class 1A after defeating Dunbar, 8-6, for the 2A/1A state championship last year.
Maddox Hensel complimented Bible with 17 carries for 71 yards and a touchdown, and Dylan Blank completed two passes, both to Sebastian Stewart, for 94 yards — including a 68-yard score.
Stewart was 5 for 5 on points after touchdown.
Mountain Ridge’s Levi Clise had 15 runs for 41 yards and a touchdown, and he completed 7 of 12 passes for 64 yards and an interception. Brayden Glass was 16 for 26 passing for 164 yards.
Eight Miners caught passes, led by Clise’s eight grabs for 73 yards and Daniel Swindle’s eight receptions for 70 yards.
Mountain Ridge lost the turnover battle, 2-0, committed 43 more penalty yards and went just 2 for 10 on third downs — 1 for 6 in the second half.
“The keys to the football game in the playoffs are turnovers, penalties, consistency,” Mountain Ridge head coach Nathan Shipe said. “And they were the team that committed fewer penalties, had fewer turnovers and they were more consistent. We had a lot of yards, but not a lot of points to show for it.”
Allegany’s defense bent but didn’t break in the first half, but the Campers’ defense scarcely flexed as the game wore on.
Mountain Ridge turned it over on downs twice and went three-and-out three more times on its first five drives after halftime. The Miners were called for four holding penalties in the second half.
Allegany pushed its lead to 28-10 after Bible took a pitch right on 3rd-and-15, found a seam and accelerated 67 yards for a touchdown with 3:08 left in the third quarter.
The Campers then played complementary football to all but secure the victory.
Trevin Cox pinned Mountain Ridge on its own 17 with a 49-yard punt, and Rylen Ellsworth sacked the Miners’ quarterback for a loss of 12, forcing Mountain Ridge to punt from the shadow of its own goalpost.
The ensuing Mountain Ridge boot hit an offensive lineman, and Alex Spriggs scooped up the ball at the two-yard line and ran into the end zone for a touchdown and a 35-10 Allegany lead with 11:44 remaining.
Mountain Ridge pulled to within 35-18 after a four-yard scamper by Tristan Deter and a conversion pass from Glass to Kaiden Lissau with 5:43 to go.
The Miners’ onside kick didn’t go the necessary 10 yards, and Hensel and Bible garnered a pair of third-down conversions to allow Allegany to kneel it out on the Mountain Ridge one-yard line.
Allegany’s improvement eight weeks after its 21-13 win over Mountain Ridge during the regular season was evident, in spite of a season-ending loss of its then-leading rusher Amanni Blowe to injury in Week 8 against Northern.
“We knew the first time that we should have been up by more than what we were,” Bible said. “We just knew we had to come out here and do our thing.”
Mountain Ridge led in most statistical categories in the first half, but a pair of Allegany takeaways spurred a 21-10 Campers lead entering the locker room.
The Miners got to within 14-10 after Will Hughes’ 32-yard field goal with 3:12 left in the half, finishing a 14-play, 66-yard drive that ate up nearly eight minutes of clock. Hughes made his lone extra point attempt.
Allegany needed just two plays and 49 seconds to respond when Blank connected with Stewart on a slant pass for a 68-yard touchdown with 2:23 on the clock.
The Miners drove into the Allegany red zone in the final seconds, but Cox stepped in front of an ill-advised pass to give the Campers all the momentum at the half.
Allegany broke a 7-7 tie with the help of another takeaway.
Spriggs stripped a Mountain Ridge ball carrier and recovered the loose ball to set up a short field at the Miners’ 46.
Six plays later, Bible plunged into the end zone on a five-yard scamper for a 14-7 lead with 11:06 remaining in the second quarter.
Allegany scored first after each team went three-and-out.
Hensel capped a nine-play, 59-yard drive with a 24-yard touchdown run on a fullback trap to make it 7-0 at the 4:28 mark of the first quarter.
Mountain Ridge leveled the score at 7 after the first quarter thanks to a five-yard Clise touchdown run. The drive spanned seven plays and 61 yards.
At halftime, Mountain Ridge led in offense (194-176), first downs (12-8), plays run (39-23) and time of possession (14:19-9:41).
By game’s end, Allegany had the edge in offense, 311-299, and pulled to within 24:52-23:08 in possession time. The Miners finished with a 19-16 advantage in first downs.
Mountain Ridge won 3 of 4 games after a 2-4 start, but its season ends in the region co-finals for a second consecutive season.
The Miners were state finalists from 2021-23.
“The community expects nine wins, the community expects to get out of the area and the players expect that and they should, and the coaches do too,” Shipe said.
“I think that the success we had over that three-year run has put us in a place where we need to win playoff games, and we need to play outside of the area at the end of the season. We want to be practicing on Thanksgiving.”
Allegany now gets its own trip downstate, 200 miles to Lusby in Calvert County to face a Patuxent team that pounded Washington, 48-0, in its region final.
Patuxent had a state championship and two runner-up finishes in its last three seasons in Class 2A/1A.
“They had to hear outside their four walls — they’re 1-4, all the transfers — that they’re not very good,” Hansel said.
“All they did was go to work. They just kept trusting each other, trusting the coaches and never gave up. And now we’re here, out of the region.”