CB South defeated CR South in SOL football action Thursday night. CR South/CB South photos provided courtesy of Darryl Rule of J&D Photography. Check back for a gallery of photos.
Stats provided courtesy of Intelligencer/Courier. For additional football stats and coverage, visit the Intelligencer (https://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school) and Courier Times (https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/)
Non-league
CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 38, COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 14
A rare Thursday night contest got off to a bit of a rocky start for the Titans, who found them deadlocked with the Golden Hawks 14-14 early in the second quarter. The rest of the night, however, belonged to the Titans, who reeled off 24 unanswered points to earn the convincing non-league win.
“I don’t know if I’d blame it on the Thursday night thing or not,” South coach Tom Hetrick said. “As a staff, we had a weird feeling that we weren’t as energized as we typically are to start a game. I’m saying, ‘Man, you’ve got to bring the juice,’ and sure enough, (Rock South) came to play, and it took us a little bit. We came out flat.”
It took the Golden Hawks all of 15 seconds to get on the scoreboard, thanks to Jake Zarnowsky’s dazzling 88-yard return of the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
“To their credit, they have some tough kids there,” Hetrick said. “They were there to play, so we had to knock ourselves around a little bit, wake up and start playing, and we did.”
The Titans answered with a touchdown drive of their own that was capped when quarterback Brett Szarko found Tommy Donnelly with a 16-yard strike to knot the score. The Titans took their first lead (14-7) on another Szarko to Donnelly connection – this one from 25 yards out for a touchdown.
The Golden Hawks – or more specifically Zarnowsky – answered with yet another big play, this time racing 67 yards for a touchdown that knotted the score 14-14 with 11 minutes remaining in the half. If the Titans needed a wake-up call, that was apparently it.
After the Titan’s defense recovered a fumble, Szarko connected with Becker for a 25-yard touchdown and a 21-14 lead, and they weren’t finished yet. With 4.3 seconds on the scoreboard clock, Sarko hit Donnelly with a 23-yard TD strike to send the Titans into halftime with a 28-14 advantage.
“That was good to get 28 (points) on the board,” Hetrick said. “That was a nice little drive with about a minute-and-a-half left.”
In the third quarter, another Szarko to Becker connection – this one from 25 yards – put the Titans on top 35-14. It was Szarko’s fifth touchdown pass of a memorable night.
“Brett Szarko did a nice job,” Hetrick said. “We were pretty efficient in the pass game. They were packing the box and sort of forcing us into spreading the ball around a little bit. To my guys’ credit, we were able to do that.”
A 32-yard field goal by CB South’s Kevin Carrigan in the fourth quarter closed out the scoring for both sides.
Szarko finished the night 16-for-24 for 292 yards and five touchdowns.
“He’s a gamer,” Hetrick said of his junior quarterback. “He’s always been a gamer. Nothing really gets to him, and at that position, you’ve got to have that kind of moxie because bad things happen, and you’ve got to have a short memory. It’s your job to distribute the ball to the playmakers, and he consistently has done that for the last four or five games.”
Donnelly was Szarko’s favorite target, hauling in nine passes for 181 yards and three touchdowns. Becker had five receptions for 78 yards and two TDs.
“Jordan Becker made some nice splash plays, and Tommy Donnelly is a tough kid to cover,” Hetrick said. “He’s just so quick. Even beyond the three touchdowns, he had some nice catches and plays.”
The Titans’ coach also credited the play of his defense.
“Besides the kickoff, they had one big splash play – the 70-yard run by number 13 (Jake Zarnowsky),” Hetrick said. “It was an unbelievable run. It’s all credit to him because he made a couple of moves and made two or three of our guys miss. Besides those two scores, I think our defense played real well.”
The Titans’ coach lauded the efforts of several players on the defensive side of the ball.
“I talked to my coaches, and they said a couple of guys up front – Liam Goss had a very good game, Mark Hetrick had a very good game,” Hetrick said. “Our linebacker, Colin Kelly, played real well. Jack Carver is one of our safeties, and he was making plays out there.”
For the Golden Hawks, Zarnowsky finished with five carries for 83 yards and one touchdown, and Damon Culver had 15 carries for 49 yards.
Central Bucks South (5-2, 2-2 SOL) is off until next Friday when the Titans will travel to Pennsbury.
“I’m giving them off tomorrow,” Hetrick said. “It does become a grind at some point, and we always say you have to push the reset every week – that’s the beauty of football, gear up and go again. It will be nice to have a day off tomorrow and get geared up.
“We go to Pennsbury next week, and then we finish with Pennridge and North Penn, so we need to continue to get better.”
Council Rock South (1-6, 1-3) will host Bensalem next Friday.
Central Bucks South 7-21-7-3 38
Council Rock South 7-7-0-0 14
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