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WYNCOTE – Ryan Hopkins read the play as if he’d called it himself.
With Cheltenham facing a second-and-goal from the Upper Dublin’s 10-yard line in the second overtime of Friday night’s SOL thriller, the senior defensive lineman knew exactly what was coming.
“We ran this play over and over at practice,” Hopkins said. “I saw it in films and studied it, studied it.
“They line up three wide receivers to the right, and I know it’s a toss – I know who they’re tossing it to, so I slanted out to him, he bobbled the ball, and I prayed that someone would recover that fumble, and that’s what happened.”Junior linebacker Sean McAneney fell on the loose ball, and the jubilant celebration was instantaneous as the Flying Cardinals escaped with a 27-20 win in double overtime over the previously undefeated Panthers.
“I lost my mind – I was so unbelievably happy,” Hopkins said. “I can’t even describe it. I’m actually still speechless.”
Earlier, the Flying Cardinals took a lead they would not lose when quarterback Andrew Derr took it in from 10 yards out on first down. Eric Boyer’s extra point gave the Flying Cardinals a 27-20 lead that held up.
“This is what we needed,” Derr said. “We haven’t gotten the respect we need, and we just showed our conference what we got, and we’re not stopping now.”
This was a win for the ages, and it was an emotional coach Bret Stover that addressed his team when it was over.
“That’s a warrior mentality – never quit, never say die,” the Flying Cardinals’ coach told his players. “We did it together as a team. This is an all-time high for me right now – two overtimes on the road against a quality opponent. “
The Flying Cardinals took it a bit personally that they were considered the underdog going against a 3-0 Panther squad in Friday’s key American Conference battle.
“We came into this game and our hearts are going and we’re getting really tense because we were picked to lose left and right,” Hopkins said. “We came out – they punched us in the face, and we punched them back. It was just going up and down, up and down.
“We just had the bigger hearts out there. We have come from the bottom before, and we did that tonight. The coaches have a lot of heart, and we have a lot of heart, and we never gave up on each other.”
In reality, it looked as though the prognosticators might be right after the Panthers accumulated more than 200 yards of offense in the first half to just 80 for the Flying Cardinals and took a 13-7 lead into the intermission.
“Joe (Gro) absolutely puzzled me in the first half offensively,” Stover said. “I take full responsibility for our ineptness on offense.“I couldn’t find the right button to push. Luckily, my defense and special teams kept us in the game.”
Derr credited Cheltenham’s defense for at least some of his team’s offensive woes.
“This is the most pressure we have gotten,” he said. “Our wide receivers couldn’t get free.”
Cheltenham’s junior quarterback Kenneth Cropper threw for 134 yards in the half, and it was his dazzling 38-yard strike to Aquil Reed - who never broke stride as he sprinted into the end zone – that gave the Panthers a 6-0 lead. Cropper’s extra point made it 7-0 at the 4:41 mark of the second quarter.
That lead held up for all of 26 seconds as the Flying Cardinals – after a dazzling 83-yard kickoff return by Khalid Weems – needed just one play to knot things up when junior fullback Jino Park took it in from seven yards out to make it a 7-6 game. Eric Boyer’s extra point knotted the score.
The Panthers responded with a 64-yard touchdown drive that featured a highlight reel pass play from Cropper to Dan Rouse, who – while fully extended – hauled in a 46-yard pass.
“Number seven – what a player,” Stover said of Rouse, who had five catches for 97 yards. “That layout – he was behind us, which he should never have been, but that was a heck of a catch.
“Cropper just makes plays with his feet and his arm. He took some shots, and that was our game plan – to hit him every time he came in the option, but he pitched the ball out perfectly.”
Two plays later, Reed sprinted around the left side for the TD. A missed extra point made it a 13-7 game at the half.
It was still a 13-7 game when the Flying Cardinals – after a 20-yard Panther punt into the wind - took possession of the ball with 4:41 remaining in regulation at the Panthers’ 44-yard line.
On first down, Anthony Williams found teammate Rich Orth with a 35-yard halfback option pass play that gave the Flying Cardinals a first-and-goal at the Panthers’ nine.
“It was nerveracking,” Williams said. “We came in and everyone didn’t pick us because they were 3-0.
“We knew from the beginning coming in here it was going to be a battle.”
Back-to-back runs by Derr – the first of five yards and the second a three-yard TD run – knotted the score.
“Our line just really stepped up,” Derr said. “They got big pushes, and they couldn’t stop our run, so we kept going at it and took what we could get.”
An off-sides call on a successful Boyer extra point was followed by the second missed extra point of the game, setting the stage for overtime.
After a seven-yard run by Reed on the Panthers’ first possession of OT, Cropper found Rouse in the end zone on a big third down play. Cropper’s extra point made it a 20-13 game.
“We talked together as a team,” Williams said. “We’re a family, and when we’re out here on a Friday night, we’re all we’ve got, and we’ve just got to trust each other.
“Coming in I thought it was just another game, but everybody else was talking about this being the biggest game of the season. It definitely was a big game. It was two good teams battling for a win.”
Hopkins acknowledged that emotions ran high in overtime.
“It’s do or die,” he said. “I don’t even know how to describe it. It felt like a championship game. It felt like we were playing for the Suburban One championship.
“That’s what we were saying in the huddle over and over again, ‘This is a championship game. Treat it like your last game,’ and that’s what we all did.”
Both teams are 3-1 after Friday night’s contest, but while the Panthers are 0-1 in league play, the Flying Cardinals are 1-0.
“I have had some good wins over the years,” Stover said. “A 3-0 opponent as quality as coach Gro and his team is – to get this to start the conference is huge.
“We still have a long way to go, and we still have a lot of good teams to beat, but the first one is usually the biggest in our conference, and I’m excited to pull one out.”
NOTES: After putting up 13 points in the first half, the Panthers were shut out in the second. What changed? “Maybe the 15 penalties we had,” Gro said. “It might not have been 15 but probably 10. That didn’t help. That disrupted any continuity we had, and they made things a little more difficult.” The Panthers will host Chichester in a non-league game next week…the Flying Cardinals were without Tyler Marks (injury) and lost Jino Park – who had a first-half interception to go along with his TD run – to an injury early in the second half....Christopher Stephens was the Panthers' leading rusher with 68 yards. William had 65 to lead the Cardinals.
UPPER DUBLIN 27, CHELTENHAM 20
Upper Dublin 0 7 0 6 7 7-27
Cheltenham 0 13 0 0 7 0-20
C- Reed 38 pass from Cropper (Cropper kick)
UD- Park 7 run (Boyer kick)
C-Reed 6run (Kick failed)
UD-Derr 3 run (Kick failed)
C-Rouse 3 pass from Cropper (Cropper kick)
UD-Williams 3 run (Boyer kick)
UD-Derr 7 run (Boyer kick)
UD C
First Downs 6 18
Rushing Yards 122 188
Passing Yards 68 182
Total Yards 190 370
Passing (C-A-I) 4-9-0 9-20-1
Fumbles-Lost 0-0 4-2
Penalties-Yds. 6-63 9-80
Punts-Avg. 5-32.2 4-26.5
RUSHING:
Upper Dublin: Anthony Williams, 14-65, 1 TD; Andrew Derr, 11-32, 2 TDs; Khalid Weems, 4-18; Jino Park, 1-7.
Cheltenham: Christopher Stephens, 14-68; Aquil Reed, 12-53, 1 TD; Tedi Lester, 7-43; Josh Lewis, 7-27; Kenneth Cropper, 1-(-3).
PASSING:
Upper Dublin: Andrew Derr, 3-8-33; Anthony Williams, 1-1, 35.
Cheltenham: Kenneth Cropper, 9-19-182, 2 TDs; Dan Rouse, 0-1-0.
RECEIVING:
Upper Dublin: Rich Orth, 1-35; Jeff Buchanan, 2-19; Jino Park, 1-14.
Cheltenham: Dan Rouse, 5-97, 1 TD; Aquil Reed, 2-44, 1 TD; Jonathan Tsipori, 2-39; Christopher Stephens, 1-2.
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