Back for its 12th season, the popular Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier Times ‘Let’s Talk Football’ features football beat writer Drew Markol. To stay on top of the high school football news in the area, visit the Intelligencer (http://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school/) and Courier Times (http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/) web sites.
Join Jeff Nolan and Kevin Cooney for the WPHT High School Football Scoreboard Show as they recap the night of high school football on Friday 10 p.m. to midnight on 1210AM/WPHT and the Audacy app.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Six SOL teams saw their seasons come to an end in last weekend’s opening round of districts with four of the six coming in all-SOL games. Two teams were defeated by teams outside of the SOL. Talk about those two games.
Drew Markol: “We’ll start with 6A –CB East had lost a couple of games at the end of the season going into the playoffs, and they had to go to Perk Valley, which is 
a pretty good team that you don’t hear a lot about. That Perk Valley team has a pretty nice resume this year – teams they’ve beaten, and they were just too much for CB East. They put 42 points on them, and their senior quarterback – Ethan Kohler had five touchdowns, throwing for three and running for two more. He can throw the ball – he threw for over 200 yards. I’ve always said – it’s very difficult for high school teams to defend a good passing team. It’s something they don’t see very often. When a team has a good quarterback like Perk Valley does, they can exploit things, and that’s hard to prepare for in a week.
“In 4A, Upper Moreland came into the season off a district title and a state playoff win, and they had to go to Pottsgrove, another good team. They put up over 30 points in a 34-12 win. Upper Moreland just couldn’t hang with them in that one. It just shows you – when it comes playoff time, reality can hit and take a chunk out of you.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Upper Dublin and Plymouth Whitemarsh were winners in Class 5A. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “In 5A, you had most of your top seeds winning. The only game where you saw a lower seed win was number nine Kennett beat number eight Chester. Other than that, the seven seeds that had home games – they won their games, including Plymouth Whitemarsh 49-0 over a depleted Cheltenham team that didn’t have a couple of their standout players due to some transfer issues and not getting the paperwork in on time. Plymouth Whitemarsh made that one pretty much a no contest early on and did a nice job of taking care of Cheltenham.
“The same thing for Upper Dublin. They hosted West Chester Henderson over at Wissahickon because of the troubles they’re still having at their field from the hurricane. Much like Plymouth Whitemarsh, they scored a ton of points and won going away, 35-7, so now Upper Dublin and Plymouth Whitemarsh will meet each other in a quarterfinal game on Friday back at Wissahickon. It’s a four seed Upper Dublin against a five seed Plymouth Whitemarsh. Just like in the first round where the eight-nine game is usually the best one, in the quarterfinals, the four-five game is usually the best one. These teams used to play each other before the conferences were realigned, so they can renew their rivalry in this one with a spot in the semifinals on the line. The winner here gets to play the West Chester Rustin/Kennett winner. West Chester Rustin is the top seed in 5A, so they’ll have to travel down there if Rustin were to win, but they can worry about that next week. It should be pretty good having Upper Dublin and PW play in the quarterfinals. Sometimes you get these things in the tournament – you get good matchups you want to see, and this is one of those.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: CB West, North Penn and Quakertown were winners in 6A. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “In 6A, again the best game was the eight/nine game between number eight CB West and number nine Pennridge. It was a 19-17 game. West held Pennridge at bay most of the game. Pennridge had a late score to make it really close, but for West, junior Eli Boehm probably had 25-30 carries and consistently picked up good chunks of yards, and West continued to convert third-and-short situations to get that win. That’s what you have to do. They play the way they play, which is long time-consuming drives, keeping the ball out of the other team’s hands. Now they have to play the top seed in Garnet Valley, which scores points in bunches. They beat Haverford High 42-0 in the opening round. West is going to try to do what it does best – keep the ball on the ground, eat up the clock, but Garnet Valley can just score very quickly. The only problem when you rely so heavily on the ground game and little chunks of yards – if you fall behind, it’s hard to come back quickly. West hasn’t had to do that much. It’s easier said than done, but West cannot afford to fall behind a very high-powered Garnet Valley team.
“In 6A, the home field advantage was even more than it was in 5A as the top eight seeds all won their first round games, and most of them weren’t that close. Some were blowouts, which leads to the discussion of – are there too many teams in the field. We’ve had this discussion before, and the answer is yes – there are too many teams in the field, but that’s not going to change anytime soon. You have Downingtown East, the four seed, beating a pretty good Spring-Ford team 21-14, and they host Quakertown. Quakertown put it to Souderton for the second time this season 33-7. Quakertown goes down there at 11-0. They’ve just been quietly moving right along. Now they will face a Downingtown East team that beat what turned out to be a pretty good Pennridge team in week one at Pennridge. This one should be pretty good to see those two meet. Quakertown can run the ball, they have a three-year quarterback in Will Steich, who can throw it, and they play good defense. I think they’ll beat Downingtown East. I think it will be close, but I could see Quakertown moving into the semifinals, and if CB West can pull off the huge upset, we could have a Quakertown/CB West game. We’re getting way ahead of ourselves, but that would be pretty cool.
North Penn, the two seed, is undefeated at 11-0. They played Central Bucks South for the second straight week and beat them 49-21. They host Ridley on Friday. Ridley crushed Conestoga for the second time this season, 42-23. Ridley and North Penn have a history in the district playoffs. They’ve met each other a couple of times. Sometimes there’s a little bit of bad blood. You wouldn’t expect that from programs that are pretty far apart from each other, but Ridley is no slouch. They’re the seven seed, they’ve only lost one game, and that was to Garnet Valley. Garnet Valley put 65 points on them, and Ridley scored 37. If you’re keeping the box score in that one, you had a long night. We’ll see. North Penn’s defense has not been as airtight as it has been in the past. Offensively, they can do a lot of things. They have Khalani Eaton, the running back, and Ryan Zeltt, the quarterback, and that gives North Penn the rare two-pronged attack, which a lot of high school teams don’t have and the really good teams do have. Will Ridley be able to deal with that? I kind of expect a high-scoring game there, but I can see North Penn pulling through there. They would go to the semifinals where they would play the winner of the Coatesville/Perk Valley quarterfinal game.”
Drew Markol’s Picks (Winner in bold)
Plymouth Whitemarsh vs. Upper Dublin at Wissahickon High School
Ridley at North Penn
Central Bucks West at Garnet Valley
Quakertown at Downingtown East
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