ELLWOOD CITY — Riverside High School football coach Tom Liberty knew that he and his coaching staff would need to come up with something more than motivational speeches in order for his 3-1 team to defeat state power Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School in the Panthers' homecoming game Friday night.

It worked briefly as Riverside took a 10-point first-half lead, before falling 50-16.

That belief led Liberty and his staff to implement an unusual game plan of throwing the ball frequently to a group of multiple wide receivers and using the no-huddle offense to keep the Trojans on their heels.

“We watched hours of tape, we had ideas how we could hurt them,” Liberty said. “That's why we implemented the empty sets and things like that. That's why we caught them off guard.”

The strategy worked brilliantly for one and a half quarters, as the Panthers stormed to a 16-6 lead behind the hot hand of junior QB Jason Dambach and the quick receiving duo of Marcel Cleckley and Logan Sheridan.

Dambach hit 12 of his first 15 passes for 117 yards and two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions.

“It really caught us off guard,” said Trojans' Head Coach Bob Ravenstahl. “That's the first time we've been trailing all year.”

However, after the quick start by Riverside, the Trojans' coaching staff made several defensive alterations — adding an extra defensive back and blitzing the quarterback more frequently.

The changes slowly shut down the Panthers offense and. North Catholic's offense began churning up yards on the ground as the Trojans dug their way out of the early hole.

“We put an extra D-back in and took a linebacker out,” Ravenstahl said. “We went into a dime defense, it seemed to work pretty good.”

By halftime, North Catholic led 22-16. After Dambach threw two third quarter interceptions, the Trojans used their punishing ground game — led by the trio of P.J. Fulmore, Jerome Turner, and Mario Latronica — to score 28 points and cruise to a win.

The win was the 21st consecutive victory for North Catholic — a mark the Trojans share with South Fayette High School as the longest active winning streak in Pennsylvania.

“The kids have a lot of heart. They're seasoned veterans,” Ravenstahl said of his players. “We get after it on offense; those kids have been playing together several years now. They're seasoned veterans and they rose to the occasion, which we expect from them.”

Fulmore said he was happy to get another win and that the Trojans were a bit shocked by the strange strategy employed by the Panthers.

“We really just needed to make some adjustments. When we planned in practice, we expected to them to play wishbone and a lot of runs plays,” Fulmore said. “But they came out and spread us out so we had to go into a dime package.”

Trailing 16-6, North Catholic mixed their offense up — alternating with runs from Turner and Fulmore and the occasional deep throw from QB Adam Sharlow to big-body wide receiver Vashon Graham.

The Trojans efforts to battle back from the 10-point deficit were initially hampered by penalties — six in the first half for 55 yards — and a turnover as Graham fumbled the ball just as he was about to cross the goal line on a 35-yard pass play.

The Panthers tried to seize the opportunity after Graham's fumble, but a costly mistake by Dambach led to an interception by Trojans' senior defensive end Joe Sadler. Three plays later, QB Adam Sharlow hit Turner for a 30-yard touchdown and the two-point conversion made the score 16-14.

North Catholic got a huge momentum boost with 1 minute left in the second quarter when Fulmore bulled into the endzone for a touchdown and 22-16 lead.

The Panthers looked like a completely different team in the second half, managing only three first downs, 66 total yards of offense.

The Trojans lead 30-16 at the end of the third quarter and then put the game away with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, two of them by third string running back Mario Latronica.