William Tennent quarterback Joe Lutz went down with a knee injury in the first quarter of Friday’s game against Bensalem. The Panthers dedicated the game to their injured captain and went on to earn a 35-21 win over the Owls. To read a complete game story, please click on the following PhillyBurbs.com link: http://www.phillyburbs.com/my_town/hamptons/ledford-takes-charge-in-tennent-victory/article_56f1d14f-2f46-57c6-a626-771bbab8da2f.html To view photos of all the action, please visit the Photo Gallery.
By Mary Jane Souder
WARMINSTER – ‘This one’s for you, Joe.’
Joe Lutz, leaning on a pair of crutches, struggled to contain his emotions as he watched the final seconds tick off the scoreboard clock in William Tennent’s gutsy 35-21 Homecoming win over Bensalem on Friday night. His teammates, at a loss for words, gave the senior quarterback silent pats on the back as they walked by.
What should have been a night of celebration for Lutz was instead a night he will want to forget. Late in the first quarter of a scoreless game, with the Panthers on the Owls’ three-yard line, the senior captain’s knee buckled as he was running a simple goal line option play.
“I was reading the defensive end,” Lutz said. “He bit on the option, so I tried to cut it up, and I just felt a pop in my knee. I thought I would get back in the next play, but it’s the last play I’ll ever play. “
The initial prognosis was a devastating one. Lutz had a torn ACL in his right knee.
“This is the worst feeling,” he said said. “This is my life, and for it to be gone just sucks.
“(An injury) is in the back of your mind. You think it can happen, but you just don’t want to believe it can happen to you.”
For no one was the night more difficult than the young man who replaced Lutz behind center – senior Jeff Ledford.
“It makes it even worse that the kid’s my best friend,” Ledford said. “He’s one of the toughest kids I’ve ever played with. He takes shots and just hops right up and keeps playing.
“You never want to see your starting quarterback go down, let alone your best friend go down. When he went down, I saw him grabbing at his knee and screaming in pain. The last game last year I went down grabbing my knee. It was my meniscus. It’s real bad.”
Ledford and his teammates immediately made it their mission to win the game for their fallen teammate.
“As soon as he went down, we said, ‘Let’s win this game for Joe,’” Ledford said. “We weren’t losing. It wasn’t even an option.”
Ledford certainly did his part to ensure that the Panthers would win it for Lutz. The wide receiver turned QB finished the night with 122 yards on 11 carries.
“The coaches put me in a good situation,” Ledford said. “They didn’t call over the top plays that would put me in bad situations.”
Despite the outcome, the mood on Tennent’s sidelines after the game was decidedly somber.
“It’s devastating,” coach Biz Keeny said. “I always say – the one kid you just can’t lose is the quarterback. Joe is just really, really good at running this offense.
“You feel badly for Joe. He’s come so far. A couple of years ago, he was a young guy that could hardly bench the bar, and he’s worked his tail off and really understood the offense and likes the offense, but guys have to step up.”
The score was deadlocked 0-0 when Lutz limped off the field. On the very next play, teammate Pat Lydon took it in from seven yards out, and although the Owls answered with a touchdown of their own on the ensuing drive, the Panthers would not be denied on this night.
Ledford wasn’t the only player to turn in a big performance. Junior Alex Perks ran for 126 yards on 12 carries for the Panthers, who took a 14-7 lead into halftime and never looked back.
“I’ll tell you – I was real proud of our kids because it could have gone south quickly,” Keeny said. “Bensalem is a nice football team. I was most concerned when we lost him – now all of suddenly you’re putting Jeff in there – who I trust, but it was just different.
“Jeff did a really nice job of stepping in and doing some things, but it was just nice to have Jeff on the outside. Perks gave us a real good football game. I like Perks. He runs hard. We had balance tonight, and that’s the key for us.”
For Keeny and all his players, Friday’s win was bittersweet.
“It’s great to win your Homecoming Game, and I know I’ve said this 30 times already, but the kid is my best friend,” Ledford said. “You never want to see a kid lose his senior season. Hopefully something big happens, and he magically recovers from it and comes back next week, but you don’t want to see him go down ever, whether it’s your junior season or your senior season.”
“He is the heart and soul of this team, no matter if he’s playing or not. He’s the captain of this team, the undisputed captain of this team, and it’s tough to lose him.”
Things won’t get any easier for the Panthers, who will take on Pennsbury next Friday.
“You know it will be a physical game, but we’ll just keep playing,” Keeny said.
Lutz, however, will be in a spot he never expected to find himself in when the Panthers take the field against the Falcons – on the sidelines watching.
“It’s hard to watch,” he said said. “You want to be out there, but you can’t.
“Senior year – you look forward to it all four years and work hard all four years for that one year, and then it’s cut short.”
Much too short for the senior captain who lived to play football.
*Stats used in this article were provided courtesy of PhillyBurbs.com, a media partner of www.SuburbanOneSports.com.
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