Defense was the name of the game in Monday night’s Montgomery County All-Star game, and no one played it better than the South squad in its 28-7 win over the North.
Evan Mao has a passion for playing football, but come next fall, the Upper Dublin senior will be watching from the stands instead of playing on the field when he enrolls as a freshman at Penn State University.
Knowing that his football playing days could be numbered, Mao made the most of his final opportunity as a Flying Cardinal in Monday night’s Montgomery County All-Star game at Souderton High School, contributing three sacks to help spearhead a stellar defensive effort by the South in its 28-7 win over the North.
“I think a lot of us realized it was our last time playing the game,” Mao said. “When you’re leaving something as much fun as high school football, you definitely want to go out with a bang.
“There’s just something about football you don’t get from other team sports. It’s football – it’s Friday Night Lights, Monday night right now, but there’s something about it that’s awesome. The bond that you form – in two weeks a great group of kids came together and played a great game.”
The South’s dominance on Monday night didn’t just happen. This is a team, according to Abington senior Chris Ruhl, that really came together.
“We started off, and everyone was within their schools at every practice and hanging out with their own kids,” he said. “But after the second or third practice, it was like we all knew each other since we were five years old, and we’d all been playing with each other since we were five.
“With the way we played, especially defensively, it seemed as though we had been playing with each other that long.”
Upper Dublin coach Bret Stover, the head coach of the South, acknowledged this his staf
f made a conscious effort to ensure the players would develop a sense of camaraderie.
“The first day, you have the Abington pod, you had an Upper Dublin pod, you had a Cheltenham pod,” Stover said. “Everybody had their own pod. I said, ‘Hey guys, the first thing you have to do is you have to become one, and that means you guys are going to have to start interacting with each other.’
“It was little by little, but that identifies the personality of the team, and once they started hitting with each other – it didn’t matter what helmet you had on, they all came together, and that’s huge. If you have a lot of individuals, it will just blow up, and we didn’t have that.”
The South owned the game defensively, holding the North to just 106 total yards of offense.
“Coming out here, a lot of us knew each other already, and it’s just great to be in an atmosphere where everyone wants it and everyone wants to play hard,” said Plymouth Whitemarsh’s Russhon Phillips, who had an interception for the South. “We’re all true football players, and we all came together as a group and played basically as a family, swarming to the ball with multiple peo
ple going to the ball on each play. Our defense did great locking down all day.
“This was different because most of us are playing both ways on the ball on our high school teams. We come out here, and we’re all playing with each other, having fun against top competition, and that’s what true football is like.”
The two teams were deadlocked 7-7, but the North squad, which had five three-and-outs after knotting the score, never was heard from after that.
“We didn’t want to come out like the NFL Pro Bowl where everybody is coming out not doing anything.” Mao said. “It’s a lot of fun to put on the pads and hit other kids. Our defense really brought it tonight, and it’s a great way to send off all the seniors.”
NOTES: On the subject of defense, Stover had high praise for the defensive effort of La Salle linebacker Sean Burke. “Wow, he is a player,” the Flying Cardinals’ coach said. “(Cheltenham) coach Joe Gro gave him a compliment when he said Burke may be the best player he’s ever coached in this game, and Joe has been in this game for almost 25 years. That’s a huge compliment. You can’t see that at practice because we didn’t go all-out, but that kid is a player. I would want him on my team any day of the week.”
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