Check out the recaps for SOL football teams in action Friday. UM/Quakertown photos provided courtesy of Kathy Leister Photography. CB South/CB West photos provided courtesy of Lisa Henderson. Pennridge/William Tennent photos provided by Jon Sklut. Pennsbury/CR South photos provided by Darryl Rule of JD Photography. North Penn/Souderton photos provided by Keith Clemens Photography. CLICK HERE to go directly to the SOS Football Gallery. Neshaminy photo provided courtesy of Jesse Garber (http://jsgarber.zenfolio.com/p318624921) Check back for galleries of game action photos.
Stats used in the wraps are provided courtesy of the Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier. For complete high school football coverage, visit the web sites: http://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school/fall/football/ and http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/fall/football/
SOL American Conference
UPPER MORELAND 35, QUAKERTOWN 14
They couldn’t have written a better script.
A brand new turf field. A packed house for Senior Night against a Quakertown squad that – entering the game – shared the top spot in the conference standings with Upper Moreland. Throw in a convincing win, and it was something close to magical for the Golden Bears, who picked up their seventh win in as many games and a convincing one at that.
“Oh my god, it was so special,” senior Cole Kitchen said. “On this new field with my teammates, especially the seniors – I’ve been playing with them for more than four years.
“It was unbelievable. I walked my parents on the field. It was Senior Night, and we came out and got the victory.”
“I’m looking around, and it’s just special,” senior Sterlen Barr said. “We knew it was going to be our Senior Night, we knew it was going to be a good night.
“We were just happy to come out here, we were ready to go. It was just amazing.”
“It’s a lifetime experience,” senior Ronnie Perrelli said. “It’s a great way to open up the field, starting off with a ‘W.’ It couldn’t have been better.”
“We have Wissahickon next week. We’ve got to prepare and then we’ll move on from there.”
The night belonged to the Golden Bears, who put up close to 400 yards of total offense and also threw some serious defense at the Panthers when it mattered most.
“It’s what opening night should be like,” coach Adam Beach said. “We’re playing a quality opponent – they’re having a great year. We’re having a good year.
“Two high school teams coming together, you throw in Senior Night and all the hoopla, and it was a great atmosphere. It feels even better when you get a win.”
The Golden Bears got on the board early when quarterback Brendan Olexa found Brett Brossman with a 15-yard touchdown pass. The Panthers had an immediate answer, knotting the score when Christian Patrick took it in from 11 yards out.
Caleb Mead raced into the end zone from 70 yards out to make it a 14-7 game after one quarter. A Barr one-yard touchdown sent the Bears into halftime with a 21-7 lead.
The Panthers threatened to make things interesting when Michael Terra scored from eight yards out, but Mead capped a UM drive with a six-yard touchdown run to put the Golden Bears on top 28-14. He put the finishing touches on a glittering performance with a 55-yard TD run.
If the Golden Bears’ offense needed an assist, it got one from a Golden Bear defense that stopped the Panthers on several fourth downs in the second half.
“The key tonight was to stop them on defense and give our running backs the ball,” said Kitchen. “We stepped up this week at practice big time.”
“We gave it our all,” Perrelli said. “Coach said this is what champions are made of. We’ve got to get that number on the wall.”
“We pride ourselves on being a wolf pack on defense,” senior lineman Jake Villanueva said. “We just all get to the ball, team tackle and just hold the offense.”
“We knew this was a tough team and we had to make plays,” Barr said. “With us making plays and doing our jobs, we were able to stop them.”
Beach was not surprised to see his defense step to the plate in key situations.
“It’s something we practice,” the Golden Bears’ coach said. “We talk about big moments in a game, and they know when there’s a big moment coming.
“We preach that. When it’s fourth-and-one on offense, we have a certain mentality, and when it’s fourth-and-one on defense, we have a certain mentality. Our kids understand that, and they know when they have to dig deeper.
“I thought our d-line really did a nice job when they were called on. They’re a quality team. They run tough and their line is good, but when we were able to get penetration and disrupt them a little bit, that’s when our defense really came to life.”
Beach credited his defensive line comprised of Villanueva, Perrelli, Brossman, Ryan Caral and Rodney Gowans.
Brad Bryan threw for 75 yards to lead the Panthers’ offense. Patrick finished with 72 yards.
Olexa threw for 118 yards and a touchdown while Mead had another huge night, running for 162 yards and three touchdowns on just seven carries. Barr had 82 yards and one touchdown.
And on this night, the Golden Bears gave the wildly enthusiastic student section plenty to cheer about.
“They’ve been at every away game,” Perrelli said. “They’ve been great.”
“We had six away games before this, and it felt like a home game,” Villanueva said. “They’ve gotten fan buses, they drove themselves. They’re probably the best fans we’ve ever had all four years.”
“It means a lot,” Barr said. “Last year we didn’t have as much as we do this year, and this year for us to be a good team and the whole community and all the fans and families coming out to support us – it brings us all closer, and it’s just real special.”
Thanking their fans was the first order of business for the Golden Bears after Friday’s win. It was nice to be home.
“It’s been a great experience,” Villanueva said. “Ever since we were freshmen, they were telling us they were going to be building a new field.
“When they finally got it done, we were just hyped, but it kept getting delayed and delayed, but to open it up and play a game like that against a great team like Quakertown, to have an atmosphere like that – this is a playoff atmosphere, it’s just a great experience.”
Upper Moreland (7-0, 4-0 SOL) will travel to Wissahickon next Friday and will close out the regular season against Upper Dublin. It is the first time the Golden Bears have opened a season with seven straight wins since 2003.
“We have two big games,” Kitchen said. “We can’t celebrate until those two games are over. We want the number on the wall, that’s all we want.”
Quakertown (6-2, 4-1) will return to action on Friday, Oct. 27, when they will travel to Plymouth Whitemarsh.
Quakertown 7-0-7-0 14
Upper Moreland 14-7-7-7 35
HATBORO-HORSHAM 49, PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 28
The Hatters were the very definition of explosive in their win over the visiting Colonials. Ben Ejimonyeugwo ignited the Hatter faithful with a 70-yard kickoff return on the opening kickoff. For an encore, Calvin Broaddus returned a punt 81 yards for a TD that put the Hatters on top 14-0. Later in the first half, Broaddus returned a kickoff for a touchdown. It was that kind of night for the Hatters.
When Josh Smith scored from 10 yards out, the Hatters led 21-0, and it was still the first quarter. Another Smith TD run – this one from 32 yards out – put the Hatters on top 28-0. A 38-yard touchdown run by quarterback Dontae Wilson put the Colonials on the board, but the Hatters answered, scoring 28 second-quarter points to go into halftime with a 42-6 lead.
Wilson led the Colonials with 182 yards on the ground and scored all four of his team’s touchdowns.
Hatboro-Horsham (4-3, 2-2 SOL) will be on the road at Upper Dublin next Friday, and Plymouth Whitemarsh (1-6, 1-3) will travel to Cheltenham on Friday.
Plymouth Whitemarsh 0-6-8-14 28
Hatboro-Horsham 14-28-0-7 49
CHELTENHAM 20, WISSAHICKON 13
The Panthers picked up their first win of the season, turning a 7-7 tie after one quarter into a 17-7 halftime lead in the closing minute of the first half. The Panthers took a 14-7 lead with 25.6 seconds remaining and then recovered a fumble, converting a Justin Grady field goal to go into halftime with a double-digit advantage.
In the third quarter, the Panthers tacked on another Grady field goal before the Trojans scored a late touchdown, thanks to a Nick Santo to Antaun Lloyd TD pass.
Cheltenham (1-7, 1-3 SOL) will host Plymouth Whitemarsh next Friday at 7 p.m., and Wissahickon (2-6, 0-5) will host Upper Moreland at the same time.
Wissahickon 7-0-0-6 13
Cheltenham 7-10-3-0 20
SOL Continental Conference
CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 21, CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 20
Tom Hetrick admits he was already planning his overtime strategy, and it was hard to blame him.
Jake Reichwein’s one-yard touchdown with 1.6 seconds showing on the clock pulled the Bucks to within one. All that remained was the extra point, but that extra point never happened, thanks to Noah Collachi. The Titans’ 6-1, 265-pound lineman blocked the extra point – his second blocked kick of the night, propelling the Titans to the exhilarating win while the Bucks were left to deal with the heartbreaking loss.
“Once they got the ball within literally two feet of the end zone, we’re saying, ‘Let’s start working on our offensive script for overtime so we’re not doing it under duress,’ so you start making those plans,” Hetrick said. “They got it in the end zone, and then line up for one. I had a feeling that maybe we had a shot at getting this thing because our d-front has been getting off the ball all night.
“We have a couple of guys up front that are pretty athletic and pretty slippery. I don’t know when I was involved in a game where there were two extra points blocked. Clearly, it mattered tonight.”
The win came on the heels of a heartbreaking overtime loss to Neshaminy a week earlier in a game the Titans led until the closing seconds. They also were down to their third quarterback on the depth chart after losing starter Jack Johns and, last week, sophomore back-up Josh Consoletti.
This was gut check time, but senior Ryan Schoch, who got the starting nod on Friday, answered the call, completing 18-of-23 passes for 169 yards with no interceptions.
“We fought hard last week and lost in overtime to a really good football team,” Hetrick said. “We’ve been playing the last two games without our starting quarterback, and our back-up who was playing the last couple of weeks got knocked out last week.
“This week we roll in with our senior, and to the kids credit, they didn’t bat an eye. They said, ‘All right, Schoch’s the quarterback. Let’s get this thing done.’ I think it’s a testament to the fact that these guys love each other to death and they take care of each other. It’s a cool thing to see happen. They rallied around him, and he managed the offense and was a great leader all night.”
The Bucks took a 14-7 lead into halftime. Quarterback Josh Crecca was a big reason why, throwing a pair of touchdown passes to Luke Benson – the first for 28 yards and the second for 85. Connor DiLissio accounted for South’s lone score in the first half.
A 32-yard touchdown run by DiLissio knotted the score 14-14 after three quarters, and the Titans appeared to be in the driver’s seat when Ryan Watson took it in from one yard out with 1:23 remaining in the fourth quarter. That still was enough time for the Bucks to march downfield for the Reichwein TD that set the stage for the game-saving play by Collachi.
Hetrick credited the effort of junior linebacker Matt Tobey in the win.
“He’s just been getting better every single week,” the Titans’ coach said. “He just makes football plays. He spent a lot of time on the offensive side of the ball tonight as well, so he was on the field probably 80 percent of the night in two pretty important positions. He was our h-back and our linebacker. He just gutted it out the whole night and made some big plays for us on both sides of the ball.”
Crecca turned in a standout effort at quarterback for the Bucks, completing 10-of-14 passes for 178 yards and two touchdowns. Benson hauled in three passes for 119 yards.
Central Bucks South (6-2, 3-1 SOL) will travel to Pennridge next Friday, and Central Bucks West (5-3, 1-3) will be on the road at Central Bucks East on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Central Bucks West 0-14-0-6 20
Central Bucks South 0-7-7-7 21
PENNRIDGE 35, WILLIAM TENNENT 26
The Rams put up close to 500 yards of total offense. That was the good news. The bad news was they allowed close to 400 yards, 376 to be exact.
Most of that damage was done by Tennent quarterback Mitchell Vierling who – on the heels of his 280-yard effort against Souderton last week – threw for 343 yards and four touchdowns. The Panthers managed just 33 yards rushing.
The Rams, meanwhile, received another strong outing from quarterback Zak Kantor who threw for 225 yards and three touchdowns. They also boasted a strong running game with four players – Josh Pinkney, Kyle Schetter, Ryan Garner and Nick Tarburton – all rushing for 60 yards or more
The Rams took a 13-0 lead in the second quarter, thanks to a pair of Kantor TD passes –both to Joe Devine. A Vierling to Jake Herbert touchdown pass made it a 13-6 game at the intermission. The duo hooked up to open the second half, knotting the score 13-13.
Schetter’s eight-yard touchdown run put the Rams on top 20-13, but the third Vierling to Herbert TD connection – this one for 11 yards – knotted the score 20-20.
Garner took it home from 45 yards out, and the Rams went on to win, but this was anything but easy.
Pennridge (6-2, 3-1 SOL) will host Central Bucks South next Friday, and William Tennent (0-8, 0-5) will be on the road at North Penn.
Pennridge 7-6-15-7 35
William Tennent 0-6-14-6 26
NORTH PENN 47, SOUDERTON 20
The Knights owned this one from start to finish, and their fun began early when Steve DePaul hooked up with John Haynes for a long touchdown pass. Then it was Justis Henley taking it in from 50 yards out, and the Knights led 21-0 after Shamar Edwards returned an interception 55 yards for a touchdown.
Kelly McNamara’s 36-yard field goal capped a 44-point first half for the Knights. It was her third of four field goals on the night as everyone got into the act. DePaul had a pair of touchdown passes in the first half, and KJ Cartwright had a 10-yard touchdown run. Oscar Hughes’ 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown was the bright spot of the half for the Indians.
In a second half that saw the Knights substitute freely, McNamara tacked on her fourth field goal. The 
Indians put a pair of touchdowns on the board in the fourth quarter. Jeremy Tammaro scored from one yard out, and Daniel Pineda had a six-yard TD run.
North Penn (6-2, 5-0 SOL) will host William Tennent next Friday, and Souderton (2-6, 1-4) will travel to Harry S Truman for a non-league game on Friday.
North Penn 21-23-3-0 47
Souderton 0-6-0-14 20
SOL National Conference
PENNSBURY 25, COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 14
The Falcons opened up a 25-7 halftime lead, and although they didn’t score the rest of the way, they had the better of play against a Golden Hawk squad that had won two of its last three games.
“There was a coach on the other side the kids love playing for,” Pennsbury coach Dan McShane said of Rock South coach Vince Bedesem. “Their kids played hard, they compete really hard, and we struggled to get off the field on third down. We didn’t give the ball to our offense enough.
“Kids love playing for Vince and all those other guys over there. They just competed and did a good job holding onto the ball.”
Zach Demarchis was once again all but unstoppable, accounting for more than 300 yards of offense. The junior quarterback threw for 157 yards and one touchdown and ran for 155 and two touchdowns. His 51-yard touchdown run gave the Falcons an early 6-0 lead.
“He makes three or four big plays for touchdowns, and we’re starting to take it for granted,” McShane said.
The Golden Hawks responded to the Falcons’ early TD with a touchdown of their own when quarterback Christian Jabbar found Andrew Vera with a strike for a 46-yard touchdown. Andy Witten’s extra point gave the Hawks a 7-6 lead after one quarter.
The second quarter belonged to the Falcons, who reeled off 19 unanswered points. That proved to be the difference in the game. Demarchis connected with David Burke for a 34-yard touchdown, and the junior QB scored from seven yards out. The half closed with JayVon McNeill taking it in from 13 yards out.
“Nasan (Robbins) was out, so we had a couple of sophomores go in at running back, and they did a good job,” McShane said of McNeill and Brad Mickles. “Obviously, it starts up front with our offensive line.
“I was a little leery of two sophomores playing and touching the ball so much, but they did a good job.”
McNeill and Mickles combined for 95 yards.
For the Golden Hawks, Jabbar threw for 175 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 65 more. Vera had six receptions for 139 yards and two touchdowns, including the only score of the second half – a 41-yard TD reception in the fourth quarter.
“Defensively, we did a real good job of run defense,” McShane said. “Our front four did a really good job.
“Like a lot of high school teams, we’re not used to playing so much pass defense, and we practice it a lot. Even then, when it’s live bullets flying around, sometimes kids get a little excited. They don’t do their job, and they end up trying to help someone else’s job. We didn’t really defend the pass very well, but we played the run really nice.”
Pennsbury (7-1, 5-0 SOL) will travel to Abington next Friday, and Council Rock South (3-5, 2-2) will host Neshaminy on Friday.
Council Rock South 7-0-0-7 14
Pensbury 6-19-0-0 25
NESHAMINY 48, BENSALEM 27
Joel Stills returned the opening kickoff 87 yards, and the track meet was underway in a contest that saw the two teams combine for over 900 yards of total offense.
The Redskins led 20-3 in the first quarter after Savion Hebron took it in from 24 yards out. Matt Crescenzo also had a TD run in the Redskins’ early onslaught.
The Owls answered with a 17-point quarter of their own to trim the Redskins’ lead to 27-20 at halftime. Highlights of the second quarter for the Owls were a 54-yard Rob Harris touchdown run and a 40-yard TD pass from Drasaun Moore to Jared O’Connell.
Touchdown runs by Oleh Manzyk and Stills (76 yards) gave the Redskins a 41-10 lead, but the Owls had one more big strike left when Moore found Isaiah Murray for an 80-yard touchdown.
Stills led all ground gainers with 225 yards and one touchdown while Harris wasn’t far behind with 215 yards and a TD for the Owls.
Neshaminy (7-1, 4-0 SOL) will be on the road at Council Rock South next Friday, and Bensalem (4-4, 1-3) will travel to Council Rock North on Saturday for a 2 p.m. contest.
Bensalem 3-17-0-7 27
Neshaminy 20-7-7-14 48
Non-league
UPPER DUBLIN 27, CENTRAL 8
The Flying Cardinals travelled to Central for a rare Friday afternoon game and made it worth the trip, notching win number 100 of Bret Stover’s outstanding coaching career.
Malik Bootman punched it in for a touchdown that put the Cardinals on top 7-0 with 5:43 remaining in the first quarter. A short punt gave the Cardinals possession at the Lancers’ 30, and Bootman capped a short TD drive when he took it in from a yard out, giving the Cardinals a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter. The Lancers trimmed that lead to 14-8 midway through the quarter, and the Cardinals took that six-point lead into halftime.
A fumble recovery by the Cardinals at the Lancers’ 25 set up a touchdown run by quarterback Justin Gimbel, giving UD a 21-8 lead with 11:44 remaining. Luca Roselli’s touchdown with 5:51 remaining capped a final scoring drive that featured a nifty Gimbel run.
Upper Dublin (5-2, 3-1 SOL) will host Hatboro-Horsham next Friday at 7 p.m.
Upper Dublin 7-7-0-13 27
Central 0-8-0-0 8
NEW HOPE-SOLEBURY 49, SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP 0
The Spartans found themselves staring at a 13-0 deficit after one quarter, and by halftime, the Lions led 21-0. Things didn’t improve in the second half.
Springfield Township (2-5) will travel to Morrisville next Friday at 7 p.m.
Springfield Township 0-0-0-0 0
New Hope-Solebury 13-8-14-14 49
About the Author
