Check the recaps for SOL football teams in the District One 6A & 5A Tournament. Cheltenham/Springfield-Delco photos provided courtesy of Kathy Leister Photography. PW/Abington photos courtesy of Kim Supko. Check back for galleries of both games.
Football stats provided courtesy of the Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier. To stay on top of the high school football news in the area, visit the Intelligencer (https://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school) and Courier Times (https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school) web sites.
CLASS 6A
#11 PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 56, #6 ABINGTON 42
(Statistics by Ed Morlock/PA Prep Live: https://papreplive.com/football/2019/11/02/brian-dresnin-plymouth-whitemarsh-run-all-over-abington/)
One series.
That’s all it took for the Colonials to set the tone for Friday’s impressive opening round win. Brian Dresnin capped the six-play drive with a 10-yard touchdown run. It marked the beginning of a monster game for the senior running back and an equally huge performance by the Colonials.
“Our first drive was huge for us,” PW coach Dan Chang said. “Nobody really gave us a shot outside our own community.
“To get the ball to start the game, go out and drive down and score was just reassuring our kids that we belong here, we can play here. That was kind of a statement drive for us.”
If there were any doubts that the Colonials belonged, they were effectively put to rest when they opened up a 28-0 lead.
“I told the kids – ‘Abington is a great team, but we are also a great team,’” Chang said of his message to his team entering Friday’s contest. “We’ve played well all year, and I have nothing but love and trust for our team, especially our senior group.
“I told them ‘We belong here just as much as everybody else, and we’ve got to play confident like we do.’”
The Colonials’ defense followed their team’s opening drive by forcing back-to-back three-and-outs for the Ghosts.
After each, Mike Paciello had touchdown runs – the first from 33 yards and the second from 15 out to give the Colonials a 21-0 lead after one quarter. Dresnin’s 93-yard touchdown run gave PW its four-touchdown lead.
The Ghosts cut that lead in half, thanks to a pair of Tamir Berthau touchdown passes – the first to Donavin Gallagher from three yards out and the second to Khaliq Henry from 33 yards. Dresin, however, answered with his third touchdown run of the half – this one for 11 yards – to send the Colonials into halftime with a 35-14 lead.
The second half featured a whole lot more offense for both sides, but the Ghosts would get no closer than 14 the rest of the way.
“Our offense was clicking tonight,” Chang said. “Brian Dresnin had 200 yards at the half and finished with 300 yards and four touchdowns. Mike Paciello had 125 yards and two touchdowns. That all starts with our offensive line – seniors Tim McNally, Zach Davis, Jake Davis and juniors Jack Hildebrand, Dan Kahley and Dylan Duran at tight end.”
The Colonials’ coach credited his defense as well.
“Abington did a great job of spreading the ball around, getting some guys in space and getting the ball to their athletes,” Chang said. “I do think our defense did a pretty nice job of flying around – Danny Hannon playing linebacker.
“Our defensive line – I thought Dylan Duran played a great game, and we have a host of D-tackles I’m rotating through. As a group, our ‘D’ played well. They’ve been playing well all year, but there are things we have to continue to fix up.”
The Colonials’ coach acknowledged the role the team’s 22 seniors have played in this year’s success story.
“They’ve taken their lumps the last two years, and now they get their payoff,” Chang said. “They are everything to the turnaround.
“This group is so close and has such strong leadership. Every game that’s who we rely on – they’re our emotional leaders, they’re our physical leaders on the field. I’m so proud of them.”
Chang is in his 10th year at the helm of the program. This is the team’s fifth district playoff appearance in his tenure but the program’s first playoff win.
“This is PW’s first playoff win in 20 years,” the Colonials’ coach said. “It’s a nice touch to tonight.”
Friday’s huge win capped a difficult week for the Colonials, who were dealing with the sudden deaths of two individuals close to the team.
“We had two tragedies hit our team,” Chang said. “It could have been bad for other groups, but it kind of made us stronger, and we grew together through it.”
Not to be overlooked was yet another stellar outing by Berthau, who became the first Abington quarterback to throw and rush for more than a thousand yards. In Friday’s season finale, Berthau threw for 249 yards and four touchdowns and also had 74 rushing yards and one touchdown.
Plymouth Whitemarsh (9-1, 5-1 SOL) will travel to third-seeded Garnet Valley for Friday’s second round game.
Plymouth Whitemarsh 21-14-7-14 56
Abington 0-14-14-14 42
#9 NORTH PENN 35, #8 CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 7
Landing the first punch.
That, according to Evan Spann, was going to be key in Friday’s district opener against a Titan squad that used a late-game comeback to defeat the Knights 36-35 two weeks earlier.
“Whoever has the first punch a lot of times wins,” Spann said.
The Knights landed the first punch and a whole lot more after that, turning in the kind of suffocating defensive effort that never let the Titans get untracked. And after taking just a 7-0 lead into halftime, the Knights erupted for 28 straight points in the second.
“I was so proud of how tough they were tonight,” NP coach Dick Beck said. “The first time we played them I told them that I thought South played harder than we did, and that’s a heartbreaker.
“All week we kept saying – ‘I don’t care what happens, win or lose, we’re going to play hard. We’re going to play harder than they are.’ I think that was our mantra for the week.”
It was the Knights’ defense – more specifically it’s defensive line – that stole the spotlight. The Titans did not get a first down in the entire first half.
“I thought the D-line was just phenomenal,” Beck said of RJ Macnamara, John Derkits, Cory Keim (who did not play in the first game because of an injury) and Spencer Heilveil. “They were just fantastic.
“(Our) focus this week was – let’s not let them get outside on us, and I don’t think they got outside on us one time. I thought we covered the heck out of their receivers. The D-line put pressure on the quarterback all night long. If he didn’t have his first receiver, he was getting tackled. I can’t tell you how proud I am of my kids.”
Macnamara acknowledged that the Knights came into Friday’s game with a singular focus.
“We definitely wanted it a lot more than we did the last time,” the senior defensive lineman said. “Last time I just felt we were very overconfident coming into that game.
“We had an injury on our defense and offense that really hurt us. They just wanted it so much more than we did in that game. We wanted to come in and prove that this time we were ready for them.”
While the Knights’ offense sputtered in the first half, the defense was impenetrable.
“We should have been up in the first half by probably two or three scores, and we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” Beck said.
Macnamara accounted for his team’s only touchdown in the first half when he punched it in from a yard out with 8:59 remaining in the first quarter. The Knights had other opportunities, including first-and-goal from the seven in the final minute of the half, but they came up empty.
“That’s obviously frustrating but not frustrating enough that we’re coming apart and yelling at each other in the locker room,” Macnamara said. “It’s just to the point where it was – ‘Hey, we’re getting it done, we just need to finish it.’”
And finish it the Knights did. On the Knights’ opening possession of the second half, Khalani Eaton’s three-yard touchdown run capped a drive that included a 36-yard run by Nate Brown.
Another defensive stop that featured sacks by Macnamara and Keim set the stage for another North Penn touchdown drive that saw Spann take it in from four yards. A two-yard Spann touchdown run was followed by a 14-yard TD run by Zayd Ward-Richardson as the Knights opened up a 35-0 lead before Carter Hallgren found Smith with a 43-yard TD pass.
“In the first half, we would drive down and then we would get comfortable being around the 10-yard line,” Macnamara said. “Instead of driving it in, we would get comfortable ‘Okay, we made it down here. It’s going to be easy from here.’
“In the second half, we just kept going with it. We didn’t relax until we put it in.”
On the defensive side of the football, Kevon White was entrusted with the task of shadowing the dangerous Sean Smith. The senior standout had three catches for 72 yards but 43 of those came on the Titans’ only touchdown in the game’s closing moments.
“Twenty-nine is so important to their offense,” Beck said of Smith. “I just felt if we could stop him that we would be in good shape.
“The last time (White) didn’t play him because he was playing strong safety. We had two injuries that we had to move guys around, so Kevon had to play in our strong safety position, and we had two sophomores playing corners. This time we had everyone healthy. We moved Kevon to corner and let him chase 29 all night. Twenty-nine is a (heck) of a player. He is really special, and he’s had a great year. We wanted to challenge Kevon. He was awesome.”
Eaton led the Knights’ ground game with 151 yards and a touchdown while Spann added 128 yards and two touchdowns in a contest that saw the Knights rack up over 400 yards on the ground.
“I thought (Evan) Spann played his best game,” Beck said. “He had over 100 yards rushing, and defensively, he played really well.”
For Spann, avenging the Knights’ regular season loss was sweet.
“This is exciting that we got a ‘W’ here – same place, same team,” he said. “That was a lot of motivation, especially watching film of the team we lost to two weeks ago. It was kind of hard watching that film, but we just knew what we had to do when we came back this week.”
“This was a big win for us,” Beck said. “I was really happy for the kids. They took the first loss pretty hard. That was a long bus ride home.”
North Penn (8-3, 4-2 SOL) will travel to top-seeded Downingtown West for its second round game Friday. Central Bucks South (4-2 SOL) closed out its season with a 7-4 record.
North Penn 7-0-14-14 35
Central Bucks South 0-0-0-7 7
#1 DOWNINGTOWN WEST 63, #16 PENNSBURY 35
In a contest that saw the two teams combine for 98 points and over 900 yards of total offense, Pennsbury looked anything but the part of underdog in the first half of Friday’s district opener.
If the Whippets needed a wake-up call, they should have gotten it when – on the Falcons’ opening possession – JayVon McNeill – raced 32 yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead just over three minutes into the contest. The drive also included the Falcons going for it on fourth-and-short on their side of the field and making it.
The Whippets answered with a TD of their own, but the Falcons weren’t finished. Not by a long stretch, and a 44-yard touchdown run by Brad Mickles was followed by a McNeill three-yard TD run that put the Falcons on top 21-7-. The Whippets knotted the score by halftime and then outscored their visitors 35-7 in the second half.
The Falcons had 480 yards of total offense – 49 yards more than the Whippets. McNeill led the Falcons’ ground game with 153 yards and three touchdowns while Mickles added 142 yards and one TD. All told, the Falcons had 352 rushing yards. CJ Kohler threw for 128 yards and one touchdown.
Pennsbury (5-1 SOL) closed out its season with a 6-5 record.
Pennsbury 14-14-7-0 35
Downingtown West 7-21-14-21 63
#7 COATESVILLE 49, #10 SOUDERTON 18
Souderton fans had to be thinking upset after Jalen White hauled in a 40-yard touchdown pass from Andrew Vince to spot the Indians a 7-0 lead after one quarter.
Then came a second quarter that included a 49-point offensive onslaught by the Raiders to turn a close game into a rout. Making that offensive explosion even more remarkable is the fact that it took Coatesville just eight minutes and 45 seconds to score seven touchdowns.
In the fourth quarter, the Indians managed to tack on a touchdown – Nick Guthre scored from 61 yards out, and Will Leyland nailed a 26-yard field goal, but this night belonged to the defending district champion Raiders.
“It wasn’t an ideal way to end the season, but I couldn’t be more proud of what this team accomplished this year,” coach Ed Gallagher said. “To go from 3-7 as sophomores to 8-3 as seniors is a testament to their work ethic and leadership.
“We got off to a great start tonight, but the wheels fell off I’m the second quarter. That is an excellent football team that may win their third straight district title. There’s no shame in losing to them – I just wish we could have sustained it for a little longer than a quarter.”
Guthre led the Indians with 118 yards and one touchdown on six carries.
Souderton (4-2 SOL) closed out its season with an 8-3 record.
Souderton 7-3-0-8 18
Coatesville 0-49-0-0 49
CLASS 5A
#1 CHELTENHAM 41, #16 SPRINGFIELD-DELCO 7
(Statistics by Andrew Robinson/PA Prep Live: https://papreplive.com/2019/11/01/hunter-special-teams-propel-cheltenham-past-springfield-delco-in-district-1-5a-1st-round/)
The Panthers had all phases of their game working in their convincing opening round win over the visiting Cougars.
Jamir Barnes had a 12-yard touchdown run in the opening quarter to account for the game’s only points. When Adonis Hunter scored from 18 yards out, the Panthers led 13-0.
“The biggest momentum shift and where we were able to put the game away was in the second quarter with some huge plays on special teams,” coach Ryan Nase said. “We have not been good on special teams the past couple of weeks, so we’ve really focused in on that, trying to improve. Myself and our special teams coordinator, Spentley Toran, have been brainstorming about personnel changes, schematic changes, and they paid off.
“Not just with the blocked punts – our opening kickoff was not very good, but after that, we were very good on our kickoff coverage which hasn’t been great. Special teams were huge for us today.”
Twice the Panthers came up big on Cougar punts – the first came when Sidiqq Williams return a botched punt 27 yards for a touchdown and a 19-0 lead and the second came when Kamden Wyatt blocked a punt that was returned 15 yards by Avin Grant for a touchdown and a 26-0 Cheltenham lead. The Panthers took a 33-7 lead into halftime on their way to the no-doubt-about-it win.
One of the game’s unsung heroes was tight end/linebacker Jon-Marc Foreman.
“He doesn’t get a ton of credit,” Nase said. “We have so many offensive weapons on the outside and in the backfield, and defensively, Zach (Gaffin) and Sam (Sykes) have been piling up statistics, but Jon-Marc has been really, really solid blocking-wise.
“Offensively, he had another big catch today. It seems like the last couple of weeks he has been really good for one big catch. Then he made a ton of plays defensively.”
The Panthers’ coach credited the play of his backfield.
“Jamir (Barnes) is still a little banged up, but he gritted through and had some big runs,” Nase said. “Sidiqq Williams has been running really, really hard and blocking the backfield the last couple of weeks. Sam Sykes had a couple of big carries for us. We had a little bit of a three-headed monster in the backfield.”
Hunter threw for 122 yards and a touchdown and he also had 79 rushing yards. Nate Edwards had a touchdown reception and also had an interception.
“There’s still improvements we need to make,” Nase said. “We had too many penalties. Our O-line was really good at times and really inconsistent at times, so we’ve got to get better up front.”
Friday’s win marked the second straight year the Panthers have won their opening round game. Last year they upended West Chester East 28-21.
“This is definitely big,” Nase said. “I don’t know when the last time Cheltenham won two years in a row. I do know that no team has ever won more than 10 games, so tonight was really important to us. Next week is even more important.
“Our motto all year has been ‘good to great.’ We were good last year, we want to be great this year. If we win next week, we have a leg up in the argument that we’re quite possibly the greatest team in Cheltenham history.”
Cheltenham (10-1, 6-0 SOL) will host ninth-seeded Unionville in Friday’s second round contest. Unionville defeated eighth-seeded Marple Newtown 28-10.
“The Unionville team we’re about to play is in the same conference with West Chester East and some of those Chester County teams – that league is just a monster,” Nase said. “I think they had a 5-4 or 6-4 record during the regular season, but they are a much better team than that.”
Springfield-Delco 0-7-0-0 7
Cheltenham 7-26-0-8 41
#7 WEST CHESTER RUSTIN 23, #10 UPPER DUBLIN 0
This was not a typical season for the Flying Cardinals, who suffered through a barrage of injuries, and it was an earlier than usual exit from the district tournament.
The Flying Cardinals battled gamely but never could get their offense untracked against a stingy Rustin defense.
Despite the outcome, coach Bret Stover had nothing but good things to say about his team.
“Before we went out on the field tonight, I said, ‘No one complained, no one made excuses,’” the Flying Cardinals’ coach said. “We went out there, and my staff – the way they puzzled it from week to week and even sometimes from play to play was incredible.
“The way the kids responded playing out of position – I’m so proud of the way they did it. They got us into the tournament. You always want your chance. We ran into a better opponent tonight.”
Upper Dublin (3-3 SOL) closed out its season with a 5-5 record.
Upper Dublin 0-0-0-0 0
WC Rustin 7-7-0-9 23
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