Back for its 14th 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.
Join Jeff Nolan for the WPHT High School Football Scoreboard Show as they recap the night of high school football on Friday at 10 p.m. on 1210AM/WPHT and the Audacy app.
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks West, the district’s top seed, came on strong in the second half to defeat Cheltenham after the Panthers took a 6-0 lead early in the third quarter. Your thoughts about that game as well as West’s game this week against eighth-seeded Garnet Valley.
Drew Markol: “You look at CB West, the top seed in the tournament, playing at home against #16 Cheltenham that was 5-5 coming in. Most people look at that game as – West will run away with it, and just the opposite happened. It was 0-0 at the half. West was hurt a lot by the loss of Conor McFadden, the wide receiver/defensive back – he’s one of the fastest kids in the state as far as track goes, and he gets hurt on the opening kickoff, and he doesn’t come back. You 
pull him out of that offense – he’s their home run hitter who can score from anywhere, and once he gets in the open field, nobody catches him. He doesn’t get enough credit for his work at cornerback because he’s a very good cornerback, and he takes away the other team’s top receiver. The injury turned out to be a torn ACL, and McFadden is out for the season.
“Last year, when West played Garnet Valley in the district final, McFadden had broken his collarbone in West’s semifinal win over Perkiomen Valley and obviously wasn’t able to play. Now, he’s not playing this week in what is a rematch of last year’s district final. Extracting him – West has lost a lot to injury this year. They lost their three-year starting quarterback to Ganz Cooper before the season, and then they lost Matt Cleland, who was an excellent punter, linebacker and receiver, and now McFadden can’t play. That changes a lot of things for West. It makes them a lot more defensible.
“Garnet Valley didn’t win all those district titles by having a bad coaching staff. They’ll figure it out quickly if McFadden’s not there because that’s a kid that can change a game with a punt return or a kick return, and to extract him from the lineup will make it really tough.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Souderton rallied for a come-from-behind win over Pennsbury in an opening round game. You were there. Your comments about that game and Souderton’s upcoming game against Downingtown West.
Drew Markol: “Pennsbury/Souderton was #14 seed versus a #3 seed, and those games are usually lopsided, but this one was tight. Souderton wins 21-14, but it took two touchdowns in the final two minutes for them to do it. It was a game where Pennsbury was really able to shut Souderton down especially in the first half – they really couldn’t do much of anything. Souderton all year has pretty much just run it, and it’s gotten them to 11-0, so it’s been working, but they needed something different because Pennsbury was just shutting down the run. Sophomore quarterback Ben Walsh was struggling. It could be the fact that you have a sophomore playing in his first district playoff game, but they went to a wildcat with direct snaps to Ryan Sadowski in the first half, and he got them a couple of yards on a couple of plays, but they had a heck of a time just gaining positive yardage. Their first couple of series were three-and-out.
“Luckily for Souderton, they’ve got Rylan Zuk, the punter and the kicker. He’s tremendous at both and is probably a Division 1 AA kicker in college somewhere. He hits those booming punts that Pennsbury never returned because he would punt it so high, and it was just a bunch of fair catches. They were fortunate to have him because that kept the field position pretty even. Ed Gallagher, the Souderton coach, said after the game that he had a talk with Walsh at the half and said, ‘We’re going to keep going to you. Just do what you can do,’ and he spread the ball around. Normally, every pass looks like it goes to Danny Dyches, but he moved it around to different people. They just needed a couple of positive plays to give them some confidence and loosen up Pennsbury’s defense, and that they were able to do that. Once the fear of the pass was initiated, Sadowski - the senior running back who had been bottled up most of the game – was able to take advantage of it with the two late touchdowns and kept Souderton’s season going. That’s how it works. We talked about this before – when it comes to the playoffs, if you want to get deep in the playoffs, you can’t be a one-trick pony because other teams will stop you. You have to have a couple of different ways to attack. Walsh came around big, and that was the difference. Now 11 wins is a school record for wins in a season. They’d never been 11-0, so they go into the district quarters against Downingtown West which shut down Council Rock South 17-0.
“You look at that matchup, and when you get to this point in the district and only have eight teams remaining, and when you make comparisons, a lot of it is by comparative scores. When Souderton played Council Rock South, Souderton beat them 7-0. Downingtown West won 17-0, but that win was just a 7-0 game until the fourth quarter. If you look at it on paper based on that, you have a pretty even matchup, which is good. You have a three versus a six seed game, so those games should be pretty close. That’s the way it works. Souderton gets another home game. Their streak is up to 19 straight home wins, so they have a lot of confidence playing at home, but it gets tougher. Downingtown West isn’t quite Downingtown East, which might be the top team in the district, but Souderton’s going to have to play better.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: North Penn rallied from a 21-0 deficit and took a 28-21 lead into the fourth quarter against fourth-seeded Spring-Ford. The Rams came back to win the game 42-35 with a big fourth quarter. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “North Penn won four straight to end the regular season just to get in, and then they gave a one-loss Spring-Ford team a battle. Amir Major scores four rushing touchdowns, and North Penn comes back and had a lead going into the fourth quarter. It was such an up and down season for North Penn, but they’re always a threat because they’re North Penn. They’re never bad, they have talent. Their sophomore quarterback, Matt Bucksar, got hurt late in that game and he couldn’t play, but still, it’s a 42-35 final in one of the biggest surprises of the first round. Again, it goes back to what North Penn coach Dick Beck has said forever – just get us into the tournament. He doesn’t care where they’re seeded because he figures – all right, if we get in, we can beat anybody. In what was a down year for North Penn, which we don’t say very often, they almost pulled off a pretty big upset.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Central Bucks South had a tough draw against Coatesville and came up with a big defensive stop on the Red Raiders’ attempt at a two-point conversion in the closing seconds. CB South held on to win 21-20. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “CB South is 8-0 going into the game against West, and West beats them. They came back to beat Pennridge to end the season 9-1, and they get the five seed, and they play 12th-seeded Coatesville. Coatesville is always dangerous. Garnet Valley has kind of replaced Coatesville at the top of the pack the past couple of seasons, but Coatesville is still a pretty good team. Coatesville scored in the final minute, and with South up 21-20, Coatesville decides to go for two, which I like. I give them credit. South’s senior linebacker, Sean Moskowitz, runs down the Coatesville running back and gets him out of bounds before he can score to preserve the win.
“I believe that South coach Tom Hetrick had been 0-6 in six district games. They had never won a district game under him, and they get the win. South has to go on the road to play Spring-Ford, a team that North Penn has given all kinds of trouble to. If they win that one, they will play the CB West/Garnet Valley winner. South has to go on the road and face Spring-Ford. The fact that South was able to handle North Penn when they played during the regular season has to give them confidence. Plus beating Coatesville has to give a team a nice jolt of confidence too, so they’ll go to Spring-Ford, and that game is a toss-up and maybe a slight edge to South, and then if West is able to beat Garnet Valley, you’re going to have a rematch in the semifinals of what – at the time – were two 8-0 teams. In that game, West jumped out on South early. South made a lot of mistakes early, and McFadden for West was just unstoppable on a couple of sweeps where he just outran everybody. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. If form holds with West – one versus eight – and they win and South pulls the minor upset of five over four, then we get West and South again in the semis, which would be great.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Quakertown gave Perkiomen Valley a run for its money and had a 26-15 lead in the second half but ended up losing 36-26. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Quakertown/Perk Valley was a 10thseed in Quakertown versus a seventh seed in Perk Valley. Perk Valley was a district semifinalist last year. Quakertown had a lead on them. Senior quarterback Vince Micucci had a couple of touchdown passes. Their defensive end – senior Anthony Ferrugio – caught two of the touchdown passes and also returned an interception for a touchdown. Quakertown had a lead but just couldn’t hang on in the end, and Perk Valley went on a run to pull away. That’s a credit to Quakertown again for hanging in there. I don’t think that much was expected of them this season, but they had a pretty good year. Perk Valley is no slouch, for sure, and if you’re Quakertown, you still get to play Pennridge on Thanksgiving.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Plymouth Whitemarsh rolled to a decisive 42-7 win over Hatboro-Horsham in a Class 5A opening round game. Your comments.
Drew Markol: “Plymouth Whitemarsh in a first round game – they were a three seed, and they took care of business against Hatboro-Horsham 42-7. It was just a solid effort. Dan Chang, the coach at Plymouth Whitemarsh, has been there a long time now, and it seems he always has his team in the district semis, the district quarters year after year. Now they get to play fifth-seeded West Chester Rustin in the quarterfinals this year. That’s a team that knocked them out of districts two years ago in a close game (19-14), so for some of the kids on PW that were sophomores – they’re going to remember that game. There’s always a little bit of a revenge factor. That first round result with them handling Hatboro is not a surprise. Again, for Hatboro, it was a season where I’m sure they were just happy to make it into the postseason.”
SuburbanOneSports.com: Upper Dublin defeated Methacton and now will travel to Strath Haven against the number two seed. Your thoughts.
Drew Markol: “Upper Dublin has just a handful of seniors, and two of those seniors – Shyne Roberts and Chris Kohlbrenner - each had two touchdowns in the opening round win. Bret Stover’s team is just young, so every week that they get to play – now they’re in the district quarterfinals, and now they get to go down to Strath Haven. Upper Dublin, the defending Class 5A district champs, may be young, but this is now their 12thgame, and now they’re not as young as they were in August. For them as a young team, this is gravy in a season where not that much was expected, and here they are in the final eight again.”
Drew Markol’s Picks
(Winners in bold)
Garnet Valley @ Central Bucks West
Central Bucks South@ Spring-Ford
Downingtown West @ Souderton
Upper Dublin @ Strath Haven
West Chester Rustin @ Plymouth Whitemarsh
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