Council Rock South will be playing in the program’s first ever District One AAAA title football game on Friday night when the Golden Hawks will take on defending district champion North Penn. The key to this team’s success, according to coach Vince Bedesem, is an outstanding senior class.
Brian Donnelly is used to pressure.
In truth, the pressure of playing on the big stage when his Council Rock South football team takes on defending champion North Penn in Friday night’s District One AAAA final just might pale in comparison to some of the pressure the Golden Hawks’ senior quarterback felt before he even took his first snap this season.
“Really, the most pressure I felt was, first of all, even deciding if I was going to play football or not this season,” Donnelly said. “I was getting a lot of pressure from a lot of people because I wasn’t committed (to a college) by then, and they were saying if I didn’t play baseball in the fall I wasn’t going to get anywhere. I ended up taking my chances, and I think it’s the best decision I ever made.”
Donnelly not only helped lead the Golden Hawks to the program’s first ever district title game, he also signed a letter of intent to accept a baseball scholarship to Rider University. As endings go, they don’t get much better than that.
“I couldn’t imagine not playing with these guys and being part of such a great run,” he said. “Especially since we had so many people doubting us – I think we were projected to finish fifth in the league.
“It’s been a lot of fun all year, coming out week after week and proving people wrong and showing them that it doesn’t matter who we lost that we had people coming up the ranks and big time role players, and we can count on anybody if we need to.”
Donnelly definitively answered the question of whether he could fill the shoes of standout quarterback Billy Fleming when – on his first touch as QB of the Golden Hawks – he raced 35 yards for a touchdown on Rock South’s first play from scrimmage in their season opener against Central Bucks South.
“We scored on the first play of the season, and that took all the pressure off my shoulders,” Donnelly said. “We kept scoring points, our defense kept holding people, and it just makes it a lot easier.”
By the time the night was over, Donnelly had rushed for 174 yards and four touchdowns in the Golden Hawks’ 42-20 win over the Titans.
.jpg)
Since that time, it’s been more of the same as Rock South rolled to a share of the SOL National Conference crown and the district’s number one seed. Donnelly, a varsity player since he was a sophomore, has been the catalyst.
“We weren’t surprised,” coach Vince Bedesem said. “We had full confidence in Brian.
“I even remember last year when our season ended, he was one of the players that wanted to get to work the very next day. We said we weren’t coming in Saturday, but when we started on Monday, he was the first one out there. He was actually doing double duty for a while, lifting with football and lifting with baseball. He just had a great attitude and focus as far as this year was concerned.”
While some coaches might want their players to focus solely on football, Bedesem is not in that number.
“All of what he has done along the way has helped him as far as being the commander in chief of the offense,” the Golden Hawks’ coach said. “He’s done a great, great job of reading our offense, and the intangible with Brian – you can’t teach speed. Brian can outrun you.”
Donnelly – who is being recruited to play in the outfield at Rider – acknowledges that his experience as a pitcher has been beneficial on the gridiron.
“When you’re in the mound with the ball in your hands, you’re in complete control of the game,” he said. “In an offense like ours where the whole offense is based on not only the linemen making the right blocks and the running backs hitting the holes hard, but it starts by making the right read because sometimes if you make the wrong read it can go from being a 20-yard gain to a five or seven-yard loss. I definitely think playing in other sports helps you with stuff like that – maturing and having to handle some of the pressure.”
Donnelly is just one of a group of 30-plus seniors who have carried the program to such lofty heights.
“This is the most successful senior class we have had,” Bedesem said. “When we had a ninth grade program, they could be the only team to have a winning season. They were like 7-1.
“We went to a couple of their games, and we noticed a lot of them right away.”
One of the players Bedesem noticed was senior tight end/defensive lineman PJ Gallo, who is bound for the University of Maryland on a football scholarship. Bedesem calls Gallo one of the team’s most consistent performers this season.
“This is something new for us, but we’re prepared for it,” said Gallo of Friday’s district title game. “It’s a great feeling to know that all the hard work has gotten us to this point and now it’s time to crank it up another notch and keep going.
“We’re really excited for Friday night, and we’re ready to go.”
According to Gallo, the chemistry this senior class shares has played a role in their ascent to the top of the district.
“First of all, we’re all great friends, and we all really like each other, which I think really helps,” he said. “We’re all been playing football with each other since we were young and just hanging out and goofing around. We’re really close as a team.
“We were all on the same freshmen team, and our sophomore year we had five or six kids starting on varsity, which is awesome. We had the majority of juniors starting on the team last year.”
That fact that was ignored by critics who predicted Rock South’s demise with the graduation of Fleming and company from a squad that advanced to the district semifinals.
“Even though we had great senior leadership last year, the backbone of that football team was the junior class, and now it’s showing even further,” Bedesem said.
“We knew coming into the year a lot of people would not look at what we had coming back but what we had lost,” senior Ryan Hickey added. “We knew what we had, and we knew what we were going to be able to do. We just had to prove it to all the other people who put us down and said we wouldn’t. Now we’re in the district finals.”
The Golden Hawks lost just once this season – a 13-10 setback at the hands of Pennsbury. Since then, they’ve won eight straight and earned a trip to the district title game.
“It’s an awesome feeling,” Hickey said. “I was just thinking about it – there are only eight teams left in the state still playing.
“The district championship doesn’t sound like much, and in other sports, it doesn’t seem like it’s too much, but in football, it means a lot. There are four teams left in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, and we’re one of them. It’s a great honor to be playing in this game, especially to be playing against a team like North Penn.”
“Really, it’s a dream come true,” Donnelly added. “Back when we were playing together at Northampton – this is something we couldn’t even dream of and couldn’t even think how big this game could be.
“I know no one else in the 10-year history of our school has had a chance to get to a game like this. That makes you think how different it really is and how rare an opportunity it is, and I’m so glad to be a part of it.”
The preparation for this game began almost immediately after the Knights, who went on to win the district crown, defeated the Golden Hawks 28-14 in a district semifinal game last year.
“People say we’re in the 16th or 17th week of the season, but we’re really in the 53rd week now since we were right back at it as soon as they knocked us off last year,” Donnelly said. “It’s just good to see that all of our hard work is paying off now.
“They have been here eight of 10 years. Being a senior, that’s not a possibility for us. This is our last shot. With the seniors we have and the heart we have on our team I don’t think we’re ready to play our last game yet.”
The Knights, who opened the season 1-2, bring a 10-game winning streak into Friday’s game.
“We just have to play South football,” Gallo said. “We just have to go out and do what we do week in and week out, and I think we’ll be fine.
“We have to play hard, and we have to give 110 percent on every play, not take one play off, and I think we’ll wind up in a good spot after the game if we do that.”
Friday night’s district title game at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School will begin at 7:30 p.m.
- Log in to post comments
