Check back also for SuburbanOneSports.com’s complete coverage of Friday night’s Hatboro-Horsham/Quakertown and Plymouth Whitemarsh/Upper Moreland contests. Saturday night’s Council Rock North at Pennsbury game will also be featured on SOS.com.
Brian Hensel undoubtedly had a whole lot on his mind besides chemistry as he went through his classes this week at Central Bucks South.The former C.B. South assistant, who still teaches chemistry at South, will find himself standing on the opposing sidelines on Friday night when the Titans take on Central Bucks West in a battle of neighboring rivals.
“It’s kind of funny because I see a lot of the former players I used to coach that are now students,” said Hensel, who is in his first year at the helm for West. “There’s ribbing in the hallways and that sort of thing.
“It’s been a lot of fun, nothing spiteful or anything like that. Teachers, coaches and administrators are all having some fun with it.”
The fun will stop on Friday night when the two teams – both in need of a win - meet on the gridiron. While Hensel’s Bucks are 1-3, the Titans are still looking for their first win.
“It’s always a big game when we’re playing one of our sister schools, South in particular,” West junior Ward Udinski said. “They have a good team this year despite their record, and it should be a good game. We’re excited to play.”“This game is huge, just like it always is against our sister schools,” South senior Theo Davis said. “For us, it’s kind of like a kickoff to our season because those first four losses were kind of hard, but in order to get on a winning streak, we have to start with win number one, and that’s West for us.”
The Titans are coming off their best performance of the season last week when they battled highly regarded North Penn to a 7-7 halftime tie.
“We had a real good, tough week of practice, and we were just real fired up and ready to go,” Davis said. “We knew we could hang with them. It was about executing and getting the job done, and we managed to do that pretty well.”
On their opening possession of the game, the Titans ate seven minutes off the clock and marched to the Knights’ 10-yard line where the drive stalled. Later in the half, quarterback Matt Johns, who finished with 123 yards in the air, found Chris Eberz for a touchdown.
It turned out to be the lone score of the game for the Titans, who watched the Knights score 20 unanswered points on their way to a 27-7 win.
“With the way we were able to play with a quality team like North Penn, we’re hoping that the players finally believe they can play,” said South coach Bart Szarko. “We’ve been trying to tell them that for a couple of weeks now, but it’s hard to really believe it until you do it.“I told the players after the game – ultimately, it’s our goal to win every game. Don’t be satisfied because we played a good team even for a half. You have to keep working 48 minutes. That’s kind of our theme – you have to keep going.”
The return of Davis to the lineup – a running back/linebacker - after an early-season injury has given the Titans a big lift.
“He was a kid we knew we were going to rely on heavily this year,” Szarko said. “He’s an impact kind of guy, and he brings a lot of leadership to the field. He was a huge boost. “
Other players who have been coming up big for the Titans, according to Szarko, are center/defensive tackle Joe Mullin, defensive end/tight end Sean Flynn, linebacker Brian Blomgren and cornerback/wide receiver Eberz.
For the Bucks, Hensel will look for Udinski to lead the way. The junior signal caller threw for 175 yards and one touchdown in West’s 20-14 loss to Souderton last week.
“Ward has done a very nice job for us so far,” Hensel said. “He’s made some mistakes, and he’d be the first to tell you. To his credit, he doesn’t live in his mistakes or his successes.
“He takes the next play and says, ‘What do I have to do here?’ As a head coach, you couldn’t ask for anything more from your quarterback – to have a short-term memory, and that’s paid dividends for us so far.”
According to Udinski, the hiring of Hensel has given the program a much-needed boost.
“I definitely think it’s inspired our team and organization to play with a new fire,” he said. “Our players are looking forward to this game.
“Since our head coach came from C.B. South, we’re trying to represent him and get him a win.”
The Bucks were 19 yards away from a potential game-winning touchdown in their loss to Souderton, but thanks in part to an ill-timed penalty on fourth-and-one, they never could punch it in.
Still, Hensel has no complaints about his team’s effort so far this season.
“The guys aren’t quitting on me, and they’re not quitting on each other,” he said. “That’s important when we’re trying to turn around a program that in recent years has had hard times.”
Joe DiStefano, who sat out last week’s Souderton game for health concerns, returns to the lineup at fullback and linebacker.
“He has been a very solid force for us,” Hensel said. “His not being on the field last week really gave us a little bit of a stumbling block – not having that force in the middle.
“He’ll be back this week, and he’s hungry and ready to go.”
In DiStefano’s absence, sophomore Chris Jazstrebski stepped in and turned in a solid outing. The Bucks lost running back Tanner Barbon to an injury early in last week’s game, and another sophomore - Jake Poeske - came in and wound up with 43 yards on the ground.
Senior captain Liam Houck, who had 64 yards rushing against Souderton, has made an impact on both sides of the ball at wing back/fullback and linebacker as well as on special teams.
“Focus is our number one concern,” Hensel said. “We can’t be overly concerned about what other teams are doing unless we know what we’re doing is the right thing for us.
“We want to make sure that our practice plan and our game plan is being executed flawlessly. If we do that, we’re going to put ourselves in a much better position to win football games this season.”
Szarko admits it will be different looking across the field and seeing his former assistant.
“It takes me back to when I first started,” he said. “I had coached with (Central Bucks East’s) Larry Greene a number of years. When we played C.B. East the first couple of times, it was just kind of different looking across the sidelines and seeing someone you’d coached with a number of years.”
For the Titans, it all comes down to consistency and execution.
“Those are the two big things,” Szarko said. “I think that over the course of the first four weeks we’ve gotten better as a team and more consistent as a team, but we’re still making way too many execution-type errors.
“We’ve done better over the last game and a half of protecting the football because that was one of our big problems earlier.”
Talk to the players, and they have their own ideas on what it will take to win Friday’s game.
“We have to play a complete game – all aspects of the ball,” Udinski said. “We have been playing great so far, we just aren’t getting wins. We have to put the ball in the end zone, put some points on the board.”
“I think the key is going to be playing tough, manning up on them, executing our plays, reading our keys and playing ball the old-fashioned way,” Davis said.
Kickoff for the battle of Central Bucks schools is at 7 p.m. at War Memorial Stadium.
On the air:
On Friday night, WBCB 1490 AM will broadcast the Harry S. Truman at Neshaminy football game live at 7 p.m. with pre-game beginning at 6:45. Saturday night’s Council Rock North at Pennsbury game will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. with the rep-game show beginning at 6 p.m. The games will also be streamed on the internet at www.wbcb1490.com.
At 7 p.m. on Friday night, the Souderton at Pennridge contest will be broadcast live on WNPV 1440 AM. The Central Bucks East at North Penn contest will be broadcast on the internet at www.wnpv1440.com.
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