Souderton defeated neighboring rival Pennridge to capture the program’s first ever district title. Photos provided courtesy of Kim Supko Photography. Check back for a gallery of photos.Stats provided courtesy of the Intelligencer/Courier. For additional football stats and coverage, visit the Intelligencer (https://www.theintell.com/sports/high-school) and Courier Times (https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/)
PERKASIE – As time was winding down on the scoreboard clock, Evan Kutzler made his final trip to the Souderton sidelines. This time the senior quarterback wasn’t getting the next play from his coach but rather watching the final seconds tick off the scoreboard clock on the Indians’ inspired 31-17 win over top-seeded Pennridge.
Kutzler and coach Ed Gallagher exchanged an emotional hug, and the celebration was officially underway. The Indians had just done what few had .jpg)
given them a chance of doing – defeating a heavily favored Pennridge squad to capture the District One 6A title.
“I’m over the moon right now – words can’t describe this,” said Kutzler. “It’s huge.”
Nearby Jacob Horton clutched the championship trophy. “I’m not letting go of this trophy,” the senior captain said.
“It feels surreal,” senior captain Aonghas Evanick said. “I don’t think I absorbed the win right now. I’ll probably definitely feel it later.
“Just taking a look back – this has never been done before. We never even played in this game, and it’s really something special, especially with this group of seniors. We’ve been working hard for the past four years together, and it’s really just a team atmosphere.”
And the team that ends every huddle with just one word – ‘Family’ – looked every bit the part of a family on a mission in Friday’s win at Helman Field.
“It’s unreal,” senior captain Jalen White said. “The program when we came in as freshmen – it wasn’t as good as it is now. Our coach (Elijah) White told us to leave this program better than we found it, and that’s exactly what we did. That was a goal.”
The Indians established early on that they meant business, slamming the door on a Pennridge drive that began at their own 29 but stalled in the red zone and limiting the Rams to a 28-yard Brandon Shire field goal.
On the Indians’ ensuing drive, they effectively established the running game with White and Braydon Porter alternately picking up nice chunks of yardage. White capped the drive with a six-yard touchdown run that – after the Mike Haynes extra point – gave the Indians a 7-3 lead.
“Thank you to the linemen, thank you to the defense – this team is the reason,” White said. “It was not a single effort, it was everybody.”
“On the first one, we were on the goal line, and I knew we had to get it in. I was falling down a little bit, shedding some tacklers, and thank you to my ‘O’ line. Jake Calin pushed me forward a little bit when I was falling. I ended up scoring.”
On their next possession, the Rams turned the ball over on downs, and the Indians went to work again. A 70-yard touchdown drive was capped with a dazzling 59-yard White run. The senior running back initially appeared to be swallowed up by the Rams’ defense but somehow escaped and raced down the right sideline for the score and a 14-3 lead.
Another stop on defense by the Indians set the stage for another successful drive that resulted in a 30-yard Haynes field goal and a 17-3 halftime lead.
“We watched a lot of film this week,” Enrick said. “We watched their tendencies, we watched their outside runs. The Tarburtons, the Hartzells, Jack Fallon from last year – we’ve played against guys like these.
“Coming back starting defensive players – we know what we’re up against, and we got everyone prepared for that.”
The Indians received the opening kickoff of the second half, and the Rams appeared to be on the verge of gaining some much-needed momentum when they recovered a fumble, and on the very next play, Shane Hartzell took it 47 yards for the score, trimming the Indians’ lead to 17-10.
If ever there was a time for the underdog Indians to crumble, this was it, but that didn’t happen. Instead, they marched 82 yards on 11 plays. After a Kutzler to Kyle Bob 11-yard completion took it to the Rams’ 20, Porter – refusing to go down – came within a few feet of the goal line. Kutzler punched it in, and the Indians led 24-10.
“We came out 17-3, we got a first down and unfortunately fumbled, gave them the ball and they scored on one play,” Gallagher said. “I was like, ‘Uh oh,’ this is not exactly how we wanted to start this, but our kids rebounded. They had a lot of resolve and were able to come back and do what they needed to do.”
“We knew we were going to go up against adversity,” Horton said. “We knew that Hartzell was a very good player. We knew we had to contain him. We couldn’t stop him altogether, but we knew he would have some big plays, and we knew we had to bounce back. The game wasn’t over. We knew we still had the lead, and we just had to keep going.”
“I always have confidence in my team,” Kutzler said. “I never once in this game thought we were going to lose. Once we came back on the ensuing drive and scored, I knew we weren’t going to let it up. We definitely had that confidence the whole entire game.”
A Rams three-and-out set the stage for another Souderton touchdown, and this one was the backbreaker with the Indians going on top 31-10 when Shaun Purvey - who also had an interception - scored from 12 yards out.
“We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy game, we knew it wasn’t going to be a rollover game,” Enrick said. “We traded punches all night. It was really a four-quarter game that we pushed all the way to the end.”
A seven-yard touchdown run by Dillon Powles on the opening play of the fourth quarter made it a 31-17 game, but that’s as close as it would get.
In the team’s jubilant postgame meeting, Gallagher told his players, “You’re allowed to cry, you’re allowed to laugh, you’re allowed to have any emotion you want to have right now because we just beat them for the third straight time.”
The third win was the big one. A team that had heard far too often they hadn’t beaten anyone had just won the program’s first ever district title with an impressive showing on both sides of the football.
“It definitely has not set in for me yet,” Kutzler said. “It probably will tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, the next day, but eventually it will, and we’ll know that we made history. We’ll know we were the first team to do that.”
Horton also was part of the Souderton baseball team’s magical run to a PIAA 6A state title as a sophomore.
“It feels like a dream that night, but once you wake up, you’re like, - ‘Wow, it’s really not a dream,’” Horton said. “It’s crazy.”
Horton pointed to the team’s hard work and work ethic as a key to its success.
“When you look at us, we’re not the biggest, we’re not the fastest,” said the senior captain, an impact player on both sides of the ball. “We just put in that work and never stopped grinding. I think that’s what really helped us.”
“Another big part of our team this year is we’ve been together for so long,” Kutztler said. “Me and Jalen have been playing together since we were five years old. It’s really knowing what we expect of our teammates and knowing we can do this and knowing we have this really good chemistry.”
The district title comes on the heels of an SOL Continental Conference crown.
“Let’s not sell the first one short,” Gallagher said. “We’re Continental Conference champs for the first time in 14 years or 13 years. This is the first time either school has been in the district championship.
“To play these guys with (Pennridge coach) Cody (Muller), who I love, and his dad Chuck, who I love. My cousin’s kid plays noseguard for this team. There are so many different connections here. This was important. Like I said, next week’s a different story, but this one was really important, and our kids knew that and they took it to heart. And they did it. They won it for themselves. They worked hard and they earned it.”
Muller – who played his high school football for Gallagher - was gracious in defeat.
“I’m proud of our kids and everything they’ve accomplished this season,” the Rams’ coach said. “This one hurts, but hats off to Souderton and coach Gallagher. I have so much respect for everything he’s done for me and for that program at Souderton.
“We’re excited for one last game against Quakertown.”
Souderton (7-0, 5-0 SOL) is scheduled to play St. Joe’s Prep in a state semifinal contest next week. Pennridge (6-1, 5-0) will travel to Quakertown for its annual Thanksgiving Day game.
Oh captains, my captains – The Indians might have been hard pressed to convince even themselves they could win a district title last Monday.
“We had a little in-fighting at practice, and it was ugly,” Gallagher said. “But Tuesday. The captains brought them together, refocused the kids.”
Horton explained.
“Basically, we had an individual practice,” the senior captain said. “We weren’t playing as a team on Monday, so the captains just sat everyone down. We told everyone that we needed to be a team and that we can’t have cliques in our team. That’s not a championship team. Championship teams get together, are together all the time, don’t have problems, and that’s what we did the rest of the week.”
Evanick added, “One of the things we did right after practice – we took the entire starting offense and we sat down in the middle of the turf, and we just relaxed for a minute, took a breath, and we really self reflected on what we were doing as a team and how we could fix it and make ourselves better. I think that really showed this week.
“Even everything starting from the beginning, we were able to be a family this year and overcome everything – even COVID, the guidelines. Every (district) game constantly being the underdogs -I think we just really worked hard, and it’s just that family team mentality.”
According to Kutzler, the Indians worked much too hard all year to let it unravel the week of the district championship game.
“Jacob Horton was definitely one of the rallying leaders, but we all rallied up,” the senior captain said. “We talked to the team after practice. We really made sure there wasn’t any bad blood. If there’s any week we need to come together, it’s this week. I think it really did help. We just grinded the rest of the week.”
The captains pointed to the important lessons learned from their predecessors – last year’s captains Andrew Vince, Ethan Smerecki, Nick Guthrie and Jimmy Daley.
“Our captains last year were a big role in what we did this year,” Horton said. “They were big role models for us. They basically taught us how to act.”
“Being returning starters, we know what we expect of our teammates, and we know how our captains last year treated us,” Kutzler said. “It’s definitely big knowing how to create that team atmosphere, go in and be prepared as much as possible. We would not be here without them.”
Stats and stuff - White led the Indians’ punishing ground game with 137 yards and two touchdowns.
“Jalen ran hard, Jalen ran possessed until he started cramping up,” Gallagher said. “He was not being stopped in the first half.”
Porter also had a big night, finishing with 105 yards on 15 carries.
“Our offensive line has been excellent all year,” Gallagher said. “Jeff Blue is our offensive line coach, and he got those kids working. They’re a well-oiled machine right now.”
There was no mistaking the impact of senior Ben Murawski (6-6, 310) on the offensive line.
“He’s a road grader, he’s a large land mass,” Gallagher said. “He played much better tonight. He struggled last week with the speed of Spring-Ford, but I think he did a little bit better tonight. That definitely played into our favor a little bit.”
For the Rams, Powles led the way with 117 yards and one touchdown on 11 carries. Hartzell had 64 yards – 47 of those came on one TD run. The Rams – who threw for 298 yards in their win over Coatesville – threw for just 27 yards.
“Our defense has been really good all year,” Gallagher said. “Mike Heath always puts together a good game plan. Our goal tonight was to stop the run and force them to beat us throwing the ball. I think that was Coatesville’s game plan last week as well, and Pennridge executed their passing game better last week than they did tonight. Our kids believed they could win this game, I’m sure their kids did too. It just feels great.”
It takes a community – In a COVID-19 pandemic season that was anything but ordinary, the players pointed to the support they received along the way as significant.
“I’m really thankful for the community that we have,” Enrick said. “Our fan base, our booster club, supporters – we definitely wouldn’t be here without them. We had a lot of support.
“We had people reaching out to my family from North Penn, from other school districts. Rival teams – they got our back. They’re watching us online, and everything that’s happened with COVID and with restrictions coming to games, everybody really got together behind our team, and I think they gave us a huge boost.”
Although surprised to hear players from North Penn saying ‘Go get this win,’ the players were appreciative.
“When you show respect, you get respect back, and that’s a huge part of what we believe in right here,” Horton said.
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