Blog Post

SuburbanOneSports.com: Drew, last week you covered Quakertown's 21-19 win over Central Bucks West. Talk about that game.

Drew Markol: "At the start, Quakertown held CB West and gets the ball, and they put together an eight-minute drive where they looked tremendous. They ran it down West's throat. For the older folks out there, it looked like a CB West drive from the old days and what they would do to teams. They ate up almost the entire first quarter, they go down and score, they hold West again, and then they put together a second drive. Their second possession wasn't quite as many plays or as long a drive, but it was still impressive, and all of a sudden, it's 14-0 and Quakertown is dominating. It just looks like this could be a rout, but then Quakertown committed a costly penalty, West got the ball back and they were able to move. West uses two quarterbacks - Gavin Grondahl and Jack Neri, and they have a big receiver in Luke Benson who's going to Syracuse. I was sitting with the West assistant coaches, and at points, they're like, 'Just send Benson out and throw it up to him.'

SuburbanOneSports.com: Neshaminy defeated Pennridge 27-14 in a key non-league game. Drew, you covered that game. Your thoughts?

Drew Markol: "Neshaminy was coming off the double overtime loss to North Penn and needed a win, and Pennridge was coming off a pretty good win over Delaware Valley the week before where they scored 54 points. In this one though, Pennridge again couldn't run the ball. They couldn't run against Del Val and they couldn't run against Neshaminy. Ryan Garner - who is a very good back and had a very good season last year - there's no room for him to run through, and it made Pennridge one-dimensional, and Neshaminy knew that. They were just rushing Zak Kantor, the Pennridge quarterback, with abandon because they could. There wasn't the threat of the run.

SuburbanOneSports.com: William Tennent snapped its 27-game losing streak with its win over Upper Moreland. Your thoughts.

Todd Thorpe: "Everybody has been talking about William Tennent winning - to play Upper Moreland, a team that won the conference title last year. It's a completely different looking Upper Moreland team. They have Caleb Mead, their running back, but there's not much else back from last year's team, including the coach, Adam Beach. Upper Moreland could be rebuilding and retooling this year, and Tennent went in with a bunch of guys that are tired of losing and have been part of that. You talk about a Kip Mooney, guys that have been on the team two years ago when they didn't win, guys that were on the team last year when they were beaten up a lot. They come out and win - you have to feel good for those kids. Tennent is not the winningest program in the world, and I've said it all along that I think the perception you can never win at Tennent is false.

SuburbanOneSports.com: Looking at the SOL American Conference, give your overview for the upcoming season.

Drew Markol: "With the American Conference, Upper Moreland wins it last year, they're undefeated in the conference with an obviously really good team, but they lost a ton to graduation. For a "smaller� program, it's hard to bounce back from that. Upper Moreland historically every couple of years has a very strong class come through and they do very well. They do have running back Caleb Mead back who's one of the area's top runners. A lot is going to fall on his shoulders, and they need a lot to fall in the right direction to repeat what they did last year.

SuburbanOneSports.com: Pennridge lost to Garnet Valley 28-20. Your thoughts about that game.

Drew Markol: "When you look at Pennridge, they had to play Garnet Valley, which runs that option attack where they just run and run and run. Pennridge had to play without star linebacker Nick Tarburton because of a school suspension. Without him in the lineup, Garnet Valley just pounded the ball up the middle where - if you've ever seen Pennridge play - Tarburton just makes tackle after tackle. Without him in the lineup, they had to turn to a freshman linebacker, and you're asking a 14-year-old to, in some cases, tackle an 18-year-old. That's very hard to do. Pennridge not having Tarburton - that really cost them. If he had played, that would have greatly enhanced their chances of winning.

SuburbanOneSports.com: North Penn lost to Garnet Valley 36-35 in a game it appeared to have won. Your thoughts.

Drew Markol: "To me, that game is still a shock - that a North Penn team with 10 minutes left in the third quarter and a 28-point lead would lose. People have said to me that Dick Beck took his foot off the gas pedal, and he shouldn't have done that. He took his foot off the gas against CB East a couple of weeks ago, and East came back, and North Penn had to put its starters back in. Deep down I don't think it was North Penn taking its foot off the gas. I just think it's a credit to Garnet Valley for continuing to play. Maybe when North Penn got the big lead, those kids thought, 'Okay, we have this one in the bag,' and they let up. Psychologically, when you're up by that much, you're saying, 'This game's over.' It's hard to believe that it happened. I don't know what happened. I'm sure the North Penn folks are scratching their heads and wondering. That was just crazy.

SuburbanOneSports.com: The first round of the tournament went pretty much as expected. Your thoughts.

Drew Markol: "The first round of districts - I don't want to call it a bye week for the higher seeded teams, but there are too many teams in the tournament. There are 33 6A schools in District One, and 16 of them get into the tournament, which is ridiculous. The top eight seeds all won. Four or five of the games were decided by 20 or more points. The field is just way too big. What they need to do is push the season back so we're not playing before Labor Day, get rid of this round of 16 and just have a round of eight. If you're not in the top eight, chances are really slim that you're going to win the district title. Just stop, but they won't stop. If you predict football games, you love the first round of the district tournament because you look like a genius, and all you've got to do is pick the top eight seeds and you'll go 8-0.

SuburbanOneSports: Neshaminy rallied for a 21-20 come-from-behind win over Pennsbury in a battle for the SOL National Conference title and the top spot in the District One 6A power rankings. Your comments.

Todd Thorpe: "Everything you want from that game it was. It had a little bit of controversy at the beginning. It was a defensive struggle and really an awesome defensive game by both teams. Oleh Manzyk, Neshaminy's junior inside linebacker, actually was a thousand-yard receiver last year, and he put in about as good a defensive effort as you're ever going to see in mirroring Zach Demarchis. Neshaminy forced four turnovers - two fumbles deep inside their own territory to stop scoring drives - and just played an excellent defensive game. That being said, they still were trailing 20-7 with nine minutes to go. They were pretty much cooked, and then Joel Stills changed the entire tenor of the game with his 92-yard kick return for a touchdown. The heroics down the stretch with the fourth down play - that's stuff of legends, and that's what I wrote about this week. It's something that rivalry is always going to remember to have a game end quite like that.

SuburbanOneSports.com: The Neshaminy/Pennsbury game that everyone has been pointing to all season is on Friday night. Your thoughts.

Todd Thorpe: "Nobody has stopped Zach Demarchis all year. He has a thousand yards rushing, a thousand yards passing with 15 touchdowns passing and 15 touchdowns rushing. He's been unstoppable. He's the kind of guy - if you're Pennsbury and you fall behind, you don't worry about it because he can make a play. He's had a really remarkable senior year. He goes into the game against a Neshaminy team that has been doing pretty much the same thing. They do it a lot differently, but they have a good defense, a good passing game.

"Flip a coin. I've seen Pennsbury a lot this year, and even North Penn didn't shut them down, and Pennsbury is a better team now than they were than. They have a much more established offensive line with the running game now. They're a much different team.

SuburbanOneSports.com: Upper Moreland defeated Quakertown 35-14 in a battle for the SOL American Conference's top spot. Your comments.

Drew Markol: "What a great job by Upper Moreland. You celebrate the opening of your new stadium. If you lose that game, you bring Upper Dublin right back into the SOL American race, but if you win that game against a good Quakertown team that only had one loss, now you've put yourself in a great spot to win the conference title, and you're doing it as a 5A school against a lot of 6A programs, which doesn't happen very often. You go out and do a great job. Adam Beach had said before that game, 'We need to take advantage of our speed.' With Sterlen Barr and Caleb Mead, that's what they did. It wasn't a 14-13 squeaker. They hammered Quakertown, and I'm sure they knew they had because the way Quakertown has been coming back week after week - they're like Rasputin, they're hard to kill off.