CB South & Bensalem were winners in SOL football action Saturday. CB South/Neshaminy photos provided courtesy of Dave Tucker. Check back for a gallery of photos.
SOL National Conference
CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 28, NESHAMINY 27
(Statistics provided courtesy of Central Bucks South football)
The Titans won a wild one on Saturday, erupting for 28 second-half points after trailing 14-0 at halftime.
“Oh man, I’ll tell you – that was a good win on a Saturday afternoon,” South coach Tom Hetrick said. “I feel like our season and Neshaminy’s season have been similar in that we’re both pretty young. We have a lot of guys that are talented but haven’t had much real live action. The same with them – they’re young, but they have some good looking kids.
“I would say both of us have gotten gradually better during the course of the season. You can sit there and say, ‘We need to get better, we’re young,’ and nobody cares. They hope you’re young and bad. I think we’ve both gotten better. Neshaminy had a nice win against Souderton last week. That first half – they were who we thought they were in that they have a very good defense, and they want to run power and pound the ball down your throats.
“I was very proud of our defense the first half because – save for a few plays – I think they did a nice job. On the offensive side, we weren’t making plays. All I said to them at halftime was – ‘Defense keep it up because as a whole you’re doing a very good job., but you guys just have to make plays. You just have to win your battle, and we expect you to make plays,’ and god bless them – they did. They came out, and a handful of them made plays in the second half.”
Few plays loomed larger than the first play of the second half that saw quarterback Brett Szarko find senior Jordan Becker with a beautiful 80-yard touchdown pass that cut the Redskins’ lead to 14-7.
“That was a huge way to start the half,” Hetrick said. “One of our assistants saw something earlier this week and said, ‘I feel like that would work off of this play action,’ and we said, ‘Let’s just start with it.’
“It was good in many ways because it got Jordan Becker – who we think is a very good football player – involved in the game, and it was good in that – after one play in the second half – we’re only down one score. It changed the dynamics of the game. It was a shot of confidence for our kids, so it was huge.”
Midway through the quarter, Zak Fischer took it in from 19 yards out that made it a 14-13 game after the ‘Skins blocked the extra point. Down but hardly out, the Redskins answered with an 89-yard touchdown drive of their own that included a huge 30-yard run by Travis Lavelah and was capped with a five-yard TD run by Lavelah that put Neshaminy back on top 21-13.
The Titans were not finished yet, capping an explosive third quarter with a touchdown drive that saw Cole Maholtz punch it in from two yards out. Szarko connected with Becker on the two-point conversion, and the two teams were deadlocked 21-21 with 16 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
Neshaminy went on top 27-21 after another touchdown run by Lavelah with 6:11 remaining in the game. Ryan Smith blocked the extra point, a play that loomed large.
“I told them after the game – ‘There a lot of good things that happened today. One of the things that not only literally but symbolically – to me – was the reason why we came back and won the game was that extra point that Smitty blocked,’” Hetrick said. “They score, and you could bow your heads and say, ‘Here we go again,’ or you can say, ‘Let’s get after it,’ and sure enough we did, and he got that. If you look at the score, it literally helped us win the game, and to me, it symbolized that the kids just didn’t quit, and they played their hearts out that whole game, especially the second half.”
The Titans answered with another scoring drive. This one was capped when Szarko found a wide open Tommy Donnelly in the middle of the field, and the junior wide receiver did the rest, evading would-be tacklers and racing to the end zone with a 45-yard touchdown reception that – after a successful extra point – gave the Titans a 28-27 lead with 3:51 remaining.
“Tommy had an unbelievable touchdown – he made a few guys miss,” Donnelly said. “He’s a very dynamic athlete.”
The game was far from over, and the Redskins had an impressive drive of their own. Quarterback Nunzio Zydzik gained 13 yards on a fourth-and-12 play, but the Redskins – who marched to the Titans’ 22 – came up with a huge stop on fourth-and-one to seal the win. Approximately four inches separated the Redskins from the important first down.
“Defensively, without watching the film, I think our defensive front had a pretty good game,” Hetrick said. “The call at the end – they run what they run and power. They full housed the backfield, and we stopped them. They needed the chains to measure it, but my goodness gracious, we stopped them.”
The Titans’ defensive line included Mark Hetrick, Kevin Dingas, Matt Krysko, and Liam Goss, who was converted from linebacker to noseguard just this week due to injuries. Owen Morlin, who just returned to action after an injury, also saw key snaps on the D-line
“I’m so happy for Owen because in the Neshaminy game last year he destroyed his knee,” Hetrick said. “You name the ligament, and he destroyed it. He’s slowly coming back. This was really the first game this season that he was getting more than half the reps. He’s playing in some pain, and he’s playing really, really well.”
“I just think our defensive line did some good things because the strength of Neshaminy’s offense is their offensive line. They always roll out good, tough kids, and I was pretty happy with how they did.”
The Titans’ coach credited several players for delivering big plays in his team’s second half comeback.
“Jordan Becker did some very good things in the second half, Zak Fischer had a big touchdown run, so he made a play,” Hetrick said. “Tyler Robinson got involved in the offense really significantly for the first time this season in the second half. He’s a receiver, and we gave him the ball on a couple of runs. He’s a very dynamic athlete with the ball in his hands, and he did some good things.
“Cole Maholtz had some big runs – a couple of them were on screen passes. To Neshaminy’s credit, they stuffed our inside run game a little bit. Cole got a couple of things on the outside and caught a couple of screen passes for some big plays as well.”
Earlier in the game, the Redskins got on the board with a minute remaining in the opening quarter when Zydzik connected with Lavelah for a five-yard touchdown. Midway through the second quarter, Neshaminy’s lead grew to 14-0 when Zydzik turned a quarterback keeper into a 17-yard touchdown.
Lavelah was the workhorse for Neshaminy, leading the ‘Skins with 30 carries for 157 yards and two touchdowns. Zydzik added 70 yards and a TD on the ground in addition to throwing for 159 yards and a touchdown in a contest that saw the Redskins generate 416 yards of total offense.
For the Titans, Szarko completed eight passes for 202 yards and two touchdowns. Becker had three receptions for 88 yards and a touchdown while Cole Maholtz had four catches for 70 yards. The Titans had 95 net rushing yards in the contest.
On the defensive side of the football, Ryan Smith (8 solo, 1 assist) and Matt Nissen (4 solo, 5 assists) both had a hand in nine tackles. Mark Hetrick had eight (5 solo, 3 assists) while Kevin Dingas (6 solo, 1 assist) and Carey Devlin (3 solo, 4 assists) both had seven.
“It was a good high school football game,” Hetrick said. “This win was huge because the conference we play in has a bunch of good teams, so any win is a good win in the National Conference. I keep telling these guys, ‘We have a good team. You’ve got to believe it.’ I think a lot of them grew up today in a good way, and they should hopefully believe that we can do some good things, so we’re excited.”
Central Bucks South (3-2, 1-2 SOL) will host Abington on Friday, and Neshaminy (1-4, 0-3) will be on the road at North Penn on Friday.
Central Bucks South 0-0-21-7 28
Neshaminy 7-7-7-6 27
SOL Continental Conference
BENSALEM 47, HARRY S TRUMAN 18
Alex Houston – in his first year at the helm at his alma mater – wants his players to play hard, have fun and create memories.
As memories go, they don’t come much better than Saturday’s Homecoming Day win over their neighboring rival.
“We had a great day,” Bensalem coach Alex Houston said. “It was our homecoming, and we were coming off two losses. We were really excited. Three of our guys were on the homecoming court, and our running back, Josiah Leonard, won the title, so we’re excited for him. He’s a great kid.
“We had a better week of practice, things were going well, and we were excited coming into today.”
The Owls may have been too excited to start the game as they struggled a bit out of the gate.
“We didn’t get off to the best start – we were down 12-0 in the first quarter,” Houston said. “Their running back (Makai Jackson), who is a great player, on a real short play ran it 80 to the house, so that was tough. They missed the extra point, and they scored again.
“We were kind of shellshocked. We had a big crowd out. Two losses in a row, we’re 2-2. We’re really trying to teach our guys how to win, we’re learning how to win. It’s not like in either one of our losses we got blown out. You’ve got to learn how to play against different teams.”
A play that ignited the Owls came on an electrifying 80-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Soberal.
“We had a real deep bomb – I want to say it was third down – down the right sideline to Jalen Soberal, and he scores his first touchdown ever because this is his first year playing football in high school,” Houston said. “He’s the center fielder for the baseball team, and he’s going to East Stroudsburg on a baseball scholarship. He decided to go out for the football team this year. He’s a great kid, a great player. He catches a bomb, and we cut it to 12-7, and it was rolling from there.”
Rolling might be an understatement as the Owls went on a 47-point tear that was broken only by a late Truman touchdown. There were heroes galore in Saturday’s homecoming win. Quarterback Matthew Saunders completed eight of 13 pass attempts for 168 yards and four touchdowns. Josiah Leonard had 22 carries for 172 yards and two touchdowns. Ashton Barnes had eight carries for 95 yards and a touchdown as well as three catches for 23 yards and a TD. Allen Myers had three receptions for 64 yards and two TDs, and Soberal had the touchdown reception that got the ball rolling. All told, the offense accumulated 439 yards and seven touchdowns, both season highs.
“Josiah (Leonard) had a heck of a ball game, just picking up five, six, nine, 12 yards each time he touched the ball,” Houston said. “I thought our quarterback, Matthew Saunders, played well.
“Allen Myers has been making big catches for us. He’s really coming on strong. He had a slow start this season, but he caught a great touchdown pass for us today. Ashton Barnes – wow, the guy runs the ball so hard and so well. We started clicking, we’re getting healthy.”
Returning to the lineup this week was Ryan Brennan.
“He arguably could be our best player – offensive/defensive lineman,” Houston said. “He went out against Upper Dublin and missed last week against CB East. He’s a really big guy for us just returning, so we’re feeling good.
“We’re really trying to go into the second half of the season with some momentum, and that’s where we are.”
The Owls’ defense – after allowing two early TDs – did not allow a point the rest of the way until the Tigers scored a touchdown after the outcome had been decided.
“Our defense stepped it up,” Houston said. “We started getting stops, and we just went on a run. Guys were contributing, guys were playing hard.
“It was a good day, great weather, a great crowd. The guys had a good week of practice. We talked all week about trying to end that first half of the season strong. We know that Truman’s on the rise. They caught our eye putting up 500 yards last week.
“We’re trying the best we can to prepare the guys the best we can so that they can make memories. You don’t get back high school football. We want our guys to enjoy it, we want our guys to have fun, play hard and enjoy it. We’re really pleased. I told them to enjoy tonight, rest up Sunday and Monday we get back to work.”
Bensalem (3-2, 2-1 SOL) will travel to Council Rock North on Friday, and Harry S Truman (2-3, 1-2) will host Upper Dublin on Friday.
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