Back for its 18th season, the popular Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier 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.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Neshaminy upset North Penn in SOL National Conference action last week. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “Neshaminy starts the season 2-0. They beat what was supposed to be a good Emmaus team and then they beat Council Rock North, which is struggling. Then they go against 0-2 Cheltenham, and you think, ‘Okay, Neshaminy will be 3-0,’ and Cheltenham just goes wild and puts up 38 points on them and wins. So that takes you to last week where they’re playing North Penn. And North Penn seemed to have righted itself after a tight one against Council Rock South. They go and they blew out Quakertown. So, everything kind of leaned towards North Penn in that game, for sure. Neshaminy had only beaten them twice since 2013.
“The game was14-12 North Penn at halftime, and with the Knights just 10 yards from a touchdown in the fourth quarter, Neshaminy forced a fumble and then drove 90 yards for the winning score. High school teams don’t go on 90-yard drives every day, and the fact that they did that – I know one of the Sassano twins – Nick Sassano – caught a touchdown pass that won the game for them.
“And for Neshaminy’s defense to shut North Penn down in the second half – North Penn quarterback Matt Bucksar is tremendous, and they have Rylei Gray, Cam Mainor and Matt Pownall in the backfield – that’s an explosive offense with Mason Franek at wide receiver. But Neshaminy turned the tables.
“In the closing minutes, Neshaminy had a fourth-and-short in their own territory. First-year coach Nick Felus went for it, and Eckart breaks into the open field for a 35-yard run. The game’s over. That’s just showing confidence in your team. At that point, you’re thinking – ‘All right, we’ve given up 12 points, we’ll punt, and we’ll see if we can stop them.’ But instead, they said, ‘No, we’re going to go for it.’ That was the call of the year, in my opinion. You look at Nick Felus, the first-year head coach, and he’s given Neshaminy one of its best wins.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your thoughts about the SOL National after week one of the season.
Drew Markol: “Who’s the best team in the National Conference right now? I don’t know. Is it still North Penn? Is it West? Is it the Neshaminy? Is CB South right in it after an 0-2 start. South went and beat East last week, and East was 3-0. It’s getting good, which is good.
“CB South is at CB West this week, and then you got North Penn at Pennridge. Those are the teams that kind of jump out at you. You look at CB South and CB West. I give the edge to West. West was driving for the go-ahead score against Easton in their opener, and they fumbled deep at Easton territory late in the game. Maybe they go in and score, and they’re undefeated. But since then, they’ve won three in a row. Rob Rowan just does a great job. He lost a ton to graduation two years ago and had a really good team last year. Lost a ton to graduation from last year, and now he’s doing it again. That’s called a program, not a team, but that’s how you do it.
“Then you’ve got CB South, which last year was 12-1 and won the regular season title. Last week, South comes back and beats CB East, which lost Mike Price, the running back, to an injury. Hopefully, it is not that serious.
“That’s a great game. There’s the revenge thing for CB West, and CB South was 0-2 and now they’re 2-2. So that’ll be one worth watching.
“And then you look at North Penn and Pennridge. How much fire is North Penn going to be playing with after losing the way they did to Neshamity, a game they figured they would win? They didn’t really seem themselves against CR South, and they came out and put 40-something on Quakertown. But then they turn around and lay an egg against Neshamity. Will they bounce back? They probably will.
“Then you look at Pennridge. They go down to Pensbury last week and shut them out 14-0. Ryan Rowe rushes for, I believe, like 120-something yards on just a handful of carries. Scores a couple touchdowns. They get the shutout down there. Now Penridge had been scoring a ton of points every week, but they played a better defense in Pennsbury, but now they sit at 4-0 too. North Penn beat them 31-0 last year. That tells you North Penn’s favored to do it again. I don’t know if they’ll beat them 31-0, but a lot of those North Penn players from last year are still on the team. It’s a big game for all of them. And if you’re North Penn, if you lose to Penridge, now you’re 0-2 in the conference, which is hard to fathom, but I’m sure Dick Beck, the North Penn coach, is telling his team, ‘Hey guys, if we lose to Penridge, we’re 0-2 in the conference, and we’ve dug ourselves a hole, and we haven’t played any of the Central Bucks schools yet.’ I’m not a big fan of saying must-wins in week five of the season, but for North Penn, it’s right there.
“It’s a really big game, and you’re playing a hot Penridge team with a lot of confidence, with a good quarterback in Noah Keating. You’ve got Ryan Rowe, who’s the running back, but he’s an even better linebacker. He’s going to play linebacker at Princeton. Will Dougherty is a bruising runner. That’s going to be a slugfest. And Penridge can see the scores. They remember they lost to North Penn 31-0. So, you know, I think that one would be pretty good. These conference games, when you have a tight conference, this is what you should have.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Your comments about the SOL Continental after week one.
Drew Markol: “Council Rock South had to come back to beat Cheltenham. Cheltenham’s only 1-3, but that one win was over Neshaminy, and they give Council Rock South all they want. Council Rock South got Nate Szydlik, the all-state linebacker, back, and he scored a late touchdown to kind of ice the game. He just makes a difference. Basically, in whatever game he’s playing in, he’s the best player on the field. Now Rock South is 3-1 with its only loss 21-14 to North Penn in a game where South threw a Hail Mary on the last play of the game that connected that would have tied the game with the point after, but it was called back for holding. So, that’s how close the North Penn game was with South.
“Does the winner of the Continental win the conference with a 5-2 conference record? Maybe. That could be between Souderton, Quakertown and Cheltenham. Throw Bensalem in there and CR South. We used to add Upper Dublin to that mix, but I saw Upper Dublin last week against Council Rock North. Council Rock North is struggling, but Ronnie Shepherd had a career high in rushing yards with 217 yards, and he had a career-best three touchdown runs. They did not have an answer for him, but that was Upper Dublin’s first win. Can they turn it around? If you bet against Bret Stover, you usually lose. I’m excited about that conference, too. Again, it’s going to be – slug it out every week.
“This week Quakertown is at Souderton for the 309 Bowl. Quakertown bounced back. They went to Bensalem, which used to be almost a sure win, and it was 21-14. They won that one, but Bensalem is no slouch. Quakertown and Souderton are rivals. They don’t really care for each other. I give Souderton a slight edge but not by a lot. You want to get a leg up because every game in the Continental is enormous. Quakertown and Souderton tied with Upper Dublin for the conference title. You look at last year’s game between these two, and Quakertown wins 35-34. Obviously, that’s a game that could go either way. A lot of the same faces – Ben Walsh at quarterback for Souderton and Brady Martin at quarterback for Quakertown. This is one of those good weeks you wish you could be at a couple different places at one time just to see the games. Those are good weeks to have.”
Drew’s Picks
(Winners in bold)
Neshaminy at Abington
Bensalem at Cheltenham
Pennsbury at Central Bucks East
Central Bucks South at Central Bucks West
Upper Dublin at Council Rock South
Academy Park at Hatboro-Horsham
Jenkintown at Lower Moreland
North Penn at Pennridge
Penn Wood at Plymouth Whitemarsh
Quakertown at Souderton
Father Judge at Springfield Twp
West Chester Henderson at Upper Moreland
JP McCaskey at William Tennent
Wissahickon at Interboro
Northwest Area at New Hope-Solebury
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