Upper Moreland defeated Quakertown 10-0 on Friday night. To view photos of the game, please visit the Photo Gallery.
QUAKERTOWN - For Upper Moreland, the early part of this season is about earning respect.
By the time the Golden Bears, who finished 2-9 in 2011, start Suburban One League American Conference plays in two weeks against Plymouth Whitemarsh, they hope to have already started opening some eyes.
Friday night, the Bears earned quite a bit of respect, at least on the defensive side of the ball, with a 10-0 shutout of host Quakertown in a nonconference game.
“I thought the defensive performance was pretty good,” UM coach Dave
Heying said about the win. “I know Quakertown got a little banged up. Their starting quarterback (Pat SanAngelo) got hurt. Their backup (Nick Buonomo) played tough, but that was a tough game to come into.”
It was tough because of the way the two squads played defense, especially Upper Moreland, which held Quakertown to just 82 yards of total offense.
“Man-for-man, I’d say our defense is really good,” said senior Robert Knox, who starts on safety on defense and halfback on offense. “I think we can compete with anybody.”
The Panthers, who slipped to 1-1 on the season, was pretty solid on that side of the ball too. Chris Kitchen capped off the opening drive of the game for UM with a 4-yard touchdown run, but after that, points were tough to come by.
And it wasn’t until a fourth-quarter safety with 5:17 remaining that the Bears finally had more than a one-score lead.
“That first drive was what we wanted to do every drive,” Heying said. “I think we had some opportunities that we didn’t capitalize on. We’re going to watch the film and try to correct some things and go from there.”
The running of Knox and Kitchen wracked up the yards, but the coach pointed to the play of the offensive line, most notably 6-foot-4, 295-pound senior guard Evyn Stadulis.
“It was his first start,” Heying said. “He was out with a knee injury for two weeks, so his conditioning - I’m really glad he did as good as he did and he stayed with it. We were anticipating running behind him and we did.”
Knox finished with 127 yards on 20 carries and had a second-half touchdown run called back because of a penalty.
“Penalties, things like that, fumbles at the end, those things killed us,” Knox said. “We had a touchdown called back. 
But you know what? We persevered. We did what we had to do. We just have to get better every week.”
Next up for the Bears is tough road game at Interboro, which handled UM 34-7 a year ago.
Overall, after losing its first nine games a year ago, a 2-0 start is just what the Bears were hoping for, but they know they’ll have to keep improving to achieve what they hope to this season.
“We have to stay healthy,” Heying said. “Our league is always tough. (Quakertown) is another Suburban One League team. We’re really glad to beat a Suburban One League team, especially somebody in a bigger conference than us.
“We feel that our first 11 guys, we have good guys on both offense and defense, and we have some good backups - The problem is our backups are young and inexperienced and not as big and strong as our starters. But if somebody needs to get in, they’ll get in.”
Upper Moreland 10, Quakertown 0
Upper Moreland 8 0 0 2-10
Quakertown 0 0 0 0-0
Scoring Summary
UM-Kitchen 4 run (Kitchen pass from Carroll)
UM-Safety, ball snapped out of end zone
Team Statistics
UM Q
First Downs 12 7
Yards Rushing 210 67
Yards Passing 24 15
Total Offense 234 82
Comp. Passes, Int 3-16-0 2-13-1
Fumbles-lost 3-2 1-0
Penalties-yards 9-82 6-50
Punts-Avg. 4-38 5-29
Sacked-Yds. Lost 0-0 2-7
Individual Statistics
Upper Moreland
Rushing: Knox 20-127; Kitchen 8-48, 1 TD; McCown 4-16; Jackson 3-15; Hooker 4-4
Passing: Hooker 3-13-0, 24 yards; Carroll 0-3-0, 0 yards
Receiving: Whitmore 1-15; Cummings 1-9; Knox 1-0
Interceptions: LaRosa
Quakertown
Rushing: Sawyer 16-62; SanAngelo 5-12; Rush 3-5; Schmauder 3-2; Buonomo 3-(-1); Bahry 1-(-13)
Passing: SanAngelo 1-6-0, 8 yards; Buonomo 1-7-1, 7 yards
Receiving: Sawyer 1-8
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