Woodland Hills fumbled the ball six times, had two of its punts blocked, gave up a safety, was penalized eight times for 45 yards and still beat conference rival Penn Hills by 25 points.

Though limiting the visiting to Indians to zero yards rushing didn't hurt the Wolverines' cause.

Woodland Hills crushed Penn Hills, 30-5, in a mistake-ridden game last night at the Wolvarena.

It didn't matter how it happened for Wolverines running back Dom Timbers. He's just happy to finally beat Penn Hills.

"We lost to these guys six times," Timbers said, "and we weren't trying to make it seven."

The senior standout had 110 yards rushing and scored three touchdowns in the Wolverines' first win against Penn Hills since 2002.

Timbers outgained the Penn Hills (4-5, 3-2) offense in last night's game, 110 yards to 70 yards.

Woodland Hills (8-1,5-0), the Post-Gazette's third-ranked WPIAL Class AAAA team, won the outright Big East Conference title with the win.

The Wolverines sacked Penn Hills quarterback Chaz Whittaker six times, intercepted one pass and recovered one fumble.

"They got a strong front, and they've got an attacking defense," Penn Hills coach Ron Graham said. "We had problems blocking their blitzes."

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But into the fourth quarter, his team still had a shot.

Down 14-5 and with the ball at the Wolverines' 10, Whittaker scrambled out of his pocket and appeared to score a touchdown, but the officials ruled Whittaker stepped out of bounds at the 4.

"That's a referee's call," Graham said.

"They said he stepped out. I don't think he did, but that's their call."

Penn Hills lined up for a 21-yard field-goal try that would have brought the Indians within one score.

But the snap was not clean, and by the time kicker Michael Ferraco kicked the ball, Woodland Hills' Jevonte Pitts was close enough to slow dance.

Pitts blocked the ball, teammate Ron DeVaughn picked it up at the 1 and returned it to Penn Hills' 4. That set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Timbers that put Penn Hills out of the game for good.

"It changed the game, changed the flow," Graham said.

Woodland Hills coach George Novak called it the "biggest play of the game."

Timbers said he knew the game was over at that point -- quite a statement considering the way the game had gone until that point.

In addition to Woodland Hills' miscues, Penn Hills lost one fumble, threw an interception and had a punt of its own blocked for a safety.

"Special teams made some big plays on both sides," Novak said.

But in the end, Woodland Hills had enough offense to make a difference.

The Wolverines weren't stellar offensively -- Timbers was one of just three Woodland Hills players to gain positive yards last night -- but they were better than Penn Hills, which finished with just 70 yards total offense, all passing.

"Defensively, I though we played a pretty decent game," Graham said. "But you can't play with half a team."

Woodland Hills limited Penn Hills to minus-5 yards total offense in the first quarter. But the Wolverines struggled in the first quarter as well, going scoreless despite two trips to the red zone.

They got on the board in the second quarter with a 3-yard touchdown run by Timbers and a 55-yard punt return from Lafayette Pitts.

Timbers nearly doubled Penn Hills' offensive total in the first half, gaining 70 yards rushing to Penn Hills' 37 yards total offense.

The Indians responded in the third quarter, scoring a field goal and adding a safety when they blocked a punt into the back of the end zone.

They blocked another punt in the fourth quarter, setting up a drive in Woodland Hills' territory that ended with the blocked field goal.

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.