Friday night’s Pennsbury/Abington game will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on WBCB 1490 AM, and the Neshaminy/Council Rock North contest will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on the internet at www.WBCB1490.com. Friday night’s Central Bucks West/Central Bucks East contest will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on WNPV 1440 AM. Friday night’s North Penn/Quakertown game will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on the internet at www.WNPV1440.com. Check www.SuburbanOneSports.com for all the SOL scores as well as a game story about this week’s SOL Featured Game pitting Council Rock South against Neshaminy and bonus coverage of the Abington/Pennsbury and Central Bucks West/Central Bucks East games.
Justin Flor and his Council Rock South teammates know that Neshaminy’s players and coaches will be coming into Walt Snyder Stadium on Friday night with a rather large chip on their collective shoulders.
“Our coaches were already telling us on Thursday night after we knew that they lost to Council Rock North that they were going to come out fired up,” Flor said. “They lost to us last year, and on top of that, their loss last week against Council Rock North, so we had practice on Friday, and we had lifting on Saturday. We had a long week of good practices.”
There figures to be plenty of emotion on both sides when the neighboring rivals meet on Friday night. The Redskins certainly haven’t forgotten that the Golden Hawks rallied for a come-from-behind win on Homecoming Night at Heartbreak Ridge last year, and the Golden Hawks are still stinging from a loss to Pennsbury two weeks ago.
It’s a huge game,” senior Tom Trampe said. “We’re treating this as our most important game of the season.”
Flor and Trampe are returning veterans on an offensive line that will play a key role in determining the outcome of Friday’s showdown.
“Our coaches are always preaching to us that it starts with the guys up front, the guys who are going to war up front,” Flor said. “If we can’t win the battle up front, how do we expect our backs to do anything for us.
“We have tremendous athletes in the backfield, and (quarterback Brian) Donnelly can do a lot of stuff and create a lot of plays by himself, which is good, but at the same time, we should be making his plays a lot easier.”
The Golden Hawks scored 77 points in their first two games combined this season in wins over Central Bucks South and Father Judge, and it looked as though they were picking up where they left off last season when they averaged 31 points a game.
Then came a 2-0 win over Pennridge that saw the Golden Hawks muster just 137 yards on the ground. They followed that with a win over Truman and the loss to Pennsbury.
“It’s tough losing to a huge division rival like that, but all in all, it probably helped make us a better football team,” Trampe said. “We don’t take anyone for granted or anything like that. We think every game is the most important game of the year. We don’t look ahead.”
According to Flor, the Golden Hawks may have been a little overconfident.
“I feel like we were getting a little too cocky, thinking we were a bit too good,” he said. “Then we lost to Pennsbury, and that straightened us out, and we’re back on the road.
“It was real disappointing, but I’m happy it happened early in the season. Now we know what it feels like, now we’re ready to go.”
Coach Vince Bedesem points to the play off the offensive line as a key in his team’s 5-1 start, and veterans like Flor, Trampe, Mike Yost and Andrew Cohen have helped ease the transition after losing quarterback Billy Fleming to graduation.
“Having a changing of the guards in your main position in any offense at quarterback, it always raises the question of how everything is going to come together chemistry-wise,” the Golden Hawks’ coach said. “That being said, having a steady group coming back (on the offensive line) and having a good supporting cast behind them, that obviously brings Brian (Donnelly) the confidence being under center.
“Our backfield is relatively new in terms of starting offensively, but I think there’s an air of confidence that you have a proven commodity out there from last year. I think it just raises the level of play, and it also raises the level of expectation.
“We have a target on our backs coming into this year which heightens everyone’s awareness, heightens everyone’s play. Our guys have just been very, very consistent, and that’s what our offense calls for.””
Sophomore Eric Gallo has stepped into a starting role on the offensive line, and Dallas Alves also sees playing time.
“I learned a lot from what the kids set out for us last year,” Flor said. “We formed a lot of team chemistry last year, and now we’re coming back this year, and we’re continuing the road they set forth for us last year. “
“It was tough losing a guy like Bill,” Trampe added. “He’s a great quarterback, one of the best players we ever had, and we lost our center, Jared Carp, who was really a key part of our offense.
“But it helps to have a bunch of guys who have been there. Instead of coming back and re-teaching a lot of the basic stuff, a lot of guys already were used to the offense, and it helped us grow and add new plays and things like that.”
No one is arguing that the Golden Hawks’ offense hasn’t been as high-powered as it was in the first several weeks of the season, but according to Bedesem, other factors also come into play.
“The points on the board might say our offense is not comparable to last year, but I would beg to differ,” he said. “There are a lot of different categories I could compare it with, not to mention field conditions alone. The weather this year is by no means what the weather was last year, and that at times can play a factor in any offense as far as trying to get continuity.”
“We had a couple of rough games that we did play on fields that were pretty muddy,” Trampe said. “It kind of slows down our fast-paced offense, but there’s really no excuses for any stuff like that.
“The teams that we didn’t score as much against did a great job planning for us. Our coaches do a great job preparing us week in and week out. We just go out there and stick to our game plan, and whatever happens happens. We don’t always have to rely on our offense. Our defense does a great job. They won us so many games this year.”
Donnelly is one of the area’s leading ground gainers, and he has a solid supporting cast in running back Anthony Alimenti and veteran fullback Ryan Whiteley.
“We have a lot of great guys,” Trampe said. “Donnelly has done a great job filling in. He was our running back last year, but he was always running with our second offense, running the plays, so really he wasn’t doing anything too new or crazy. He was behind Bill, and Bill helped him a lot.”
The Golden Hawks’ offense hopes to return to the form that it displayed in the season’s opening weeks.
“We have been playing a lot tougher teams, and we needed to start working harder at practice each and every week,” Flor said. “We started off real pumped up the first game because we had been practicing so long in the summer, and we had been working so hard in the weight room, so we came out real fired up the first game.
“I think we need to come out real fired up like we did the first game for every single game.
“Neshaminy is always a good game for us. We always look forward to playing them and Pennsbury and good teams like that.”
On Friday night, the Golden Hawks will take on the Redskins in a high stakes game for both teams. Kickoff is 7 p.m.
NESHAMINY at COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH
Friday, Oct. 14, 7 p.m., Walt Snyder Stadium
2011 Record: Council Rock South 2-1 SOL (5-1 overall), Neshaminy 1-2 SOL (4-2 overall)
2010 Record: Council Rock South 6-1 SOL National Conference tri-champs (11-2 overall), Neshaminy 6-1 SOL National Conference tri-champs (12-2 overall)
Last week: Council Rock South 23, Bensalem 7; Council Rock North 17, Neshaminy 14
Last year: Council Rock South 28, Neshaminy 21
Council Rock South coach Vince Bedesem’s keys to the game: “Against a team like Neshaminy, obviously, you need to bring you ‘A’ game. That goes without saying. They’re a football team that is always a benchmark, not only in this area but in the State of Pennsylvania. You have to make sure all the key factors are in place. Ball security is number one, and turnovers in big games like this can make all the difference in the world. We have to make sure we have ball security, we have to control the clock, and we need to put points on the board. You’re certainly not going to beat a team like Neshaminy without getting as many points as possible every time you have the ball, whether it be three or six. Defensively, we have to execute as far as stopping the run. That’s a main goal of ours week in and week out. We need to stop the run and win the third down battle. We’ve got to get off the field, and we have to give the ball back to the offense and let them do what they need to do. We need to play consistent football – not only winning third down but winning first down, and putting them in long situations is going to be helpful.”
Players to watch:
Brian Donnelly (Sr.) – QB
Ryan Whiteley (Sr.) – FB/LB
P.J. Gallo (Sr.) – TE/DE “Every week we’re trying to utilize his talent as part of our four-headed monster with another option being able to give him the football,” Bedesem said. “That is one of our goals as far as coming into this game, not to mention the weeks after.”
Andrew Cohen (Sr.) – OL/DL
PJ Steinmetz (Jr.) – LB
Anthony Alimenti (Sr.) – RB/LB
Ryan Hickey (Sr.) – RB/DB
Coach Bedesem says: “We are not looking at it as added pressure since we lost to Pennsbury. I think sometimes you have a tendency to do that to yourself. We’re right now just looking at Neshaminy. I don’t think we need to put any added pressure on ourselves except giving it our all and playing a solid football game against a very talented team this week.”
Neshaminy coach Mark Schmidt’s keys to the game: “They’re doing a really nice job with their running game and with their offense. They really mix things up. Their quarterback – Brian Donnelly – is really good at running that offense. Defensively, they’re very stout. I think with the exception of one game, they’ve only given up 
one or two touchdowns a game, if that. They really play well, and they’re physical. The big key is we have to make them work for every point that they get, and we need to take advantage if we get opportunities.
“The line of scrimmage has been an issue. When we’ve been able to do pretty well up front, we’ve been able to win most of those games. We really have to do a better job battling. We’ve had opportunities on both ends of the field to make plays, and we haven’t. We need to let the linebackers hit the holes and get to the football, and we need to give the quarterback some time to make the throw when a kid is open. The biggest thing we have to do is handle the line of scrimmage the best we can. “
Keep an eye on the trenches: “Our offensive and defensive lines both have to step up. On the offensive line, Alex McKenzie and Ian Waterbury – they’re both juniors, and they’re two good players, also our tight end – Tadas Karusevicius has to have a good game. On defense, Luke Carrezola, John Bell and Chris Kutsubos. They’ve done some decent things at times, but they haven’t done enough.”
Coach Schmidt says: “Our goal is obviously to win as many games as we can, but really our biggest goal every week is to go out and play our best. Quite frankly, we haven’t played our best yet. We did a lot of things last week to shoot ourselves in the foot. Council Rock North did a lot of good things to stay ahead of us. We certainly had opportunities during most of the game to go out and take charge, and we still found a way to get ahead of things at the end, but they came right back and made a couple of plays on their own. It was quite a roller coaster. I guess the biggest issue is everybody needs to point fingers at themselves instead of everybody else, and kind of just shut up, show up and play like we know how to play. If we do that, that’s all anybody can ask for. It’s not rocket science. You have to play together.
“We haven’t been taking advantage of things like we should. We have a decent play but then have a penalty, or we have a play and we’ll miss an assignment. We’ve just been very inconsistent, and it’s been very frustrating. Quite honestly, I’ve called a couple of lousy calls too – I’ve made a couple I’d like to have back, but it’s a team effort. There’s been not enough good and too much bad, and we have to get better.”
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