Back for its 15th 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.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks South scored a remarkable last-second touchdown to defeat Central Bucks West in a classic battle. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “The best game of the season so far with the best ending by a mile – unless we count the Quakertown game, which I’ll talk about in a minute – was Central Bucks South 
beating Central Bucks West 22-17. On a last-second final play of the game, CB South’s Owen Pinkerton lofted a Hail Mary about 39 yards into the corner of the end zone, and senior Danny Gies – South’s best receiver – and about four West defenders and another South player all went up for the ball, and Gies was somehow able to pull it down with the clock showing zero to keep South undefeated at 5-0. With the win, South clinched the CB Cup, which goes to the Central Bucks team that beats the other two teams in the regular season. They had a magical season last year, and they’ve kept the magic going. It was just incredible. There are videos out there that show the remarkable play. There was a huge crowd at the game, and they’ll be talking about this one for a long time.
“What added to the drama of this one was that West took the lead at 17-16 with less than a minute to go when Ryan Clemens, the senior running back, scored on a touchdown run from nine yards out to give them the lead. West was celebrating on its sideline like the game was over. Instead, South gets down to the West 39 to give itself a chance, and they made the most of it with the Hail Mary that worked.
“It’s hard to put this one into words – how good it was. Two really good teams, which hopefully will meet in the playoffs like they did last year, just go at it.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Quakertown’s come-from-behind win over Souderton also is a game they’ll be talking about for a long time. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “As incredible as the South win over CB West was, Quakertown’s 35-34 win over Souderton was right there with it. Quakertown is playing at home, they fall behind 28-0 in the first quarter – that’s hard to do in a high school football game with 12-minute quarters because the other team has to score so quickly. They’re down 28-0, and you’re thinking – ‘well, the mercy rule is coming in.’ Then all of a sudden, Quakertown starts chipping away in the second quarter to bring it back to 34-15 at halftime, but still, a 19-point deficit is an awful, awful lot to come back from. Quakertown kept Souderton out of the end zone in the second half, and they kept chipping away, chipping away and made it 34-29. Souderton pooched a punt that put the ball on the Quakertown 20 with 17 seconds to go. Quakertown had no timeouts and had to go 80 yards because a field goal wasn’t going to do it. They needed a touchdown. Junior quarterback Brady Martin keeps getting better and better. He’d already had four touchdowns before the miraculous comeback.
“Martin threw a pass to Matt Thomas for 12 yards, and there was a late hit called on Souderton that moved it to near midfield with about 12 seconds to go. Martin throws the Hail Mary from there, and Thomas again makes the catch at the 10. Quakertown rushes up to the line, and Martin spikes the ball with two seconds to go. So now you have two seconds, you’re on the Souderton 10. You obviously have to throw it in the end zone because you can’t run another play, so with two seconds to go on the Souderton 10, Martin drops back to pass, and he finds Thomas again for the third straight time on the drive. He was in the back of the end zone, and Martin hits him in stride, and boom, it’s 35-34, and Quakertown wins the game.
“It was just incredible. They don’t make them like this. As much as they’ll be talking about the West game, they’ll be talking about this one too. If Quakertown loses that game, they’re 1-4, and their shot at the playoffs is pretty much over. Instead, now they’re 2-3, and they have a ton of momentum. They beat a Souderton team that beat CB West. It was just an absolutely phenomenal game.
“Souderton’s Michael McCormick had a couple of touchdowns, and junior quarterback Ben Walsh threw for a pair of touchdowns, but that stuff just gets lost. You won’t see one, let alone two high school games like those two. High school teams trying to get everything organized with the clock and everything - it doesn’t happen. It’s just good coaching is what it is, and it shows that those teams have been drilled on how to do this because it’s a whole lot different than the regular flow of play.
“For Quakertown to go down and Martin to spike the ball – you’ve got to set everybody up. It’s just a difficult, difficult thing to do. It just shows you how much coaching really matters.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Pennsbury edged Central Bucks East in a tightly contested game. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “In another final-second kind of win that gets lost in all the hoop-la of Souderton/Quakertown and CB South/CB West, Pennsbury gets a 31-yard field goal from junior kicker Angelo Pereira with 12 seconds to go to beat CB East 17-14. Pereira has been good all season. He won last year’s game against East with three field goals, and he does it again here. This was a game where Pennsbury was trying out a new quarterback, David Kane. They came into the game 2-2. That’s a tough spot to be in. I’m sure they were hoping to be better. They were 0-1 in the conference, and they needed a win. They got the win, and it gets them even in the conference and 3-2 on the season. They also had a tough loss last week to Pennridge, so Pennsbury needed to bounce back. That’s just what they did. They also got big games from running backs Kaiden Brown and Jordan Brensinger - both had over a hundred yards rushing.
For CB East, the loss drops them to 0-2 in the conference and 2-3 overall. A bright spot for them was sophomore running back Mike Price had a 20-yard touchdown run. He just keeps getting better and better.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Council Rock North earned its first win of the season with a win over Harry S Truman. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “Both Council Rock North and Truman looked at the schedule and said – that game could be a win. It was a nice win for Council Rock North. They came from behind to beat Harry S Truman 16-13. Two teams that are struggling a bit. Council Rock North was winless, and they got the first win for first-year coach Brandon Garrett, the former Pennsbury standout. Council Rock North scored on a safety in the first quarter to go up 2-0 and didn’t score again until the fourth quarter when they got two touchdowns by junior running back Erik Ratkevicius – the first one was a 21-yard run, and the second one was from 10 yards out. Council Rock North was up 16-7. Truman did score a late TD to account for the final margin. Again, this was a win Council Rock North needed for a new coach and a winless team. To get it is a confidence builder and hopefully turned them around a little bit. They have a couple of winnable games coming up. Truman just has one win so far this season. It was a tough one for them – they drop to 0-2 in the conference and need to scramble a little bit. It was one of those games – you knew it would be close, which it was. It just happened to go Council Rock North’s way, and Garrett gets his first win.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Cheltenham also notched its first win of the season. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Cheltenham had an emotional win, 31-14, over Bensalem. In that game, Cheltenham head coach Troy Gore was not able to be at the game because of a family emergency. His assistant coaches took over running the team, and Cheltenham came out in that one and built a 20-0 halftime lead. Bensalem fought back and made it 20-14 in the second half, but Cheltenham was able to pull away. Mike Dunn, their very good receiver, had 150 yards receiving and a touchdown, and at quarterback, sophomore Kendall Jackson threw for 225 yards and two touchdowns. On defense, Sean Alston had a pair of interceptions. This win was more for the coach, and Cheltenham came in knowing their coach was struggling with his situation and got a win for him.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Any games that catch your eye this week?
Drew Markol: “Looking ahead at this week’s schedule Springfield at Upper Moreland looks like it might be a good one. You have undefeated Upper Moreland coming off a 42-7 crunching of West Chester Henderson, and Springfield is 4-1. Springfield played the 4-0 Lower Moreland last week. Lower Moreland was ranked above the Spartans in the Class 4A District 1 power rankings, but 35-0 later, Springfield showed that they deserved to be the more highly regarded. The thing was Springfield did its damage in the first half, which enabled coach Chris Shelly to play his reserves after halftime and get them some playing time, which is always nice. Springfield’s only loss was to Pope John Paul, a really good team. Now you have them against a 5-0 Upper Moreland, which is up to 5A this year. It’s two really good teams going at it, and one that’s basically a coin flip to call.”
Drew Markol’s picks
(Winners in bold)
Pennridge @ Abington
Council Rock South @ Bensalem
North Penn @ Central Bucks East
Neshaminy @ Central Bucks West
Souderton @ Cheltenham
Quakertown @ Council Rock North
Upper Dublin @ Harry S Truman
Plymouth Whitemarsh @ Hatboro-Horsham
Academy of the New Church @ Lower Moreland
Springfield Twp @ Upper Moreland
Wissahickon @ William Tennent
Central Bucks South @ Pennsbury
New Hope-Solebury @ Tower Hill School
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