PA – Central Athletic League | Archive | August, 2018

UPPER DARBY >> Trash talk on Twitter morphed into trash talk on the field, which morphed into 48 minutes of some fittingly sloppy late August football.

No, Upper Darby and Bonner & Prendergast did not light up the scoreboard Friday. The Royals, however, did enough. They came away with a 19-7 season-opening victory in the 14th iteration of this rivalry, dubbed the Upper Darby Bowl.

The series is now even at 7-7. Upper Darby has won two straight games. This one will quickly be lost from memory, but Royals coach Rich Gentile will take away the effort of his squad.

“It wasn’t the prettiest game in the world, it really wasn’t,” the veteran coach explained. “But the constant that they had — they just played hard. And that’s what I’m excited about.”

Each team had more than 100 penalty yards. There were nine completed passes. There were four turnovers. It was ****. It took a while. Labor Day isn’t for another week-plus. It looked and felt every bit the part.

The game turned with a decision. Bonner & Prendergast led 7-0 with 23 seconds remaining in the first half. It was at its own 14. There was nothing to accomplish offensively, yet Friars coach Jack Muldoon elected to run a play.

The ball was snapped over the head of Shon Nelson, trickled into the end zone, and was recovered by Dezhan Peterson. Tie game.

“We handed the game to them,” Muldoon said. “We’re up 7-0, if we get out of the half, we get the ball back, who knows what happens.”

Bonner & Prendergast works exclusively out of the shotgun. They felt uncomfortable kneeling from under center. Thus, disaster ensued. Muldoon was adamant it wouldn’t happen again.

His team rebounded, drove down the field to open the second half, and were in position to score. Until, Michael Standen — who switched off with Nelson behind center — threw a two-handed shovel pass directly to Delva Jean-Baptiste.

The soft-spoken Upper Darby linebacker added another interception later in the third quarter after reading a screen pass. He was named the game’s MVP.

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Upper Darby quarterback Kevin Kerwood, left, throws a pass under pressure from Bonner & Prendergast’s Eddie Sullivan during the first half at Upper Darby Friday night. (ERIC HARTLINE/For Digital First Media)

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NEWTOWN TWP. >> There will be tougher nights ahead for Marple Newtown, but Friday’s season opener was a significant first step nonetheless.

The Tigers, at Primo Hoagies Stadium, handled their visitors from KIPP DuBois Collegiate Academy, 43-0, with all the Tigers’ points coming in the first half.

Marple is coming off a semifinal appearance in the District 1 Class 5A semifinals and has hopes of competing once again for the Central League title. A blowout was in the cards.

“We just came out,” said running back Marlon Weathers, “and got right to it.”

Weathers was speaking of the team, but he might as well have been speaking about himself. He racked up 85 yards on just six carries and scored on rushes of 16 and 10 yards to spot the Tigers a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

“I feel like I have to be more of a leader and take over some games,” Weathers said. He was in control during his cameo before ceding the backfield to second stringers. He understood he needed to make a statement after rushing for 1,500 yards and 25 touchdowns a year ago.

“Last year’s over with,” he said. “It’s a new season, a new schedule, a new beginning with new expectations.”

On his penultimate run, Weathers, two plays after spinning out of the pile for a gain of 14, broke outside and sprinted 26 yards deep into Lions’ territory. He went out of bounds, then, standing in front of the student section, beckoned for more noise.

“It’s go-time now,” Weathers said.

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LOWER OXFORD—It wasn’t the most crisply played game in the world, tainted by six turnovers. But Haverford will take it.

The Fords opened the season with a win, topping Chester 26-12 Saturday night under the lights at Lincoln University, in the season opener for both teams.

“That team can play,” said Haveford coach Joe Gallagher of the Clippers. “They are a dangerous team, and it feels great to come out of here with a win. The defense kept us in this game. It was sort of ****, but we’ll take the win.”

Things didn’t start particularly well for Haverford. On its first play from scrimmage of the day, the Fords coughed it up, and Chester covered it up to take over with excellent field position. But the Haverford defense wasn’t going to let the Clippers take advantage, stopping them on four straight plays, and the Fords took over at their own 31.

:Later that drive, a 57-yard completion from Jake Ruane to Ryan Odgers put the Fords at the Chester 11. Ruane ran it in from there for the touchdown and a 6-0 Fords lead.

“In a battle like this, it was important for the defense to play as well as we did,” said Ruane, who finished the day with 173 yards on 9 of 14 passing, while also rushing for a pair of scores. “It was a big confidence boost for us for the defense to make a stop like that and for us to follow that with a quick score.”

The Fords made it 13-0 by the end of the first period when Ruane connected with Shane Mosley on a 63-yard scoring strike.

But the second period was all Chester. The Clippers cut the lead to 13-12 by halftime, thanks to a pair of fumble recoveries setting up scores on a 29-yard pass from Tahree Fuller Bryan to Kylie Scott-Harper and a 4 yard run from Ish Maultsby.

Chester continued to make big plays on offense, but saw too many drives stall because of penalties.

“That is the teaching moment from this game,” said Chester coach LaDontay Bell. “We played tough. We played some amazing defense, and we made plays on offense. But we just committed too many penalties. We have to work on those kinds of things and just keep working to get better.”

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NEWTOWN SQUARE >> The last thing Marple Newtown linebacker Tom Tobin wanted to do was run wind sprints. No football player likes to run them, especially in training camp. The drill is usually done at the end of practice when players are hot, tired and sore. All they want to do is get out of the sun and relax.

Sprints, though, are a necessary evil, part of the conditioning program designed to have players in peak fitness for the season. So Tobin, a senior, begrudgingly ran along with his teammates. As he did, he looked over and saw teammate Sal Tartaglia Jr. doing crunches on the turf at Harry R. Harvey Field.

Less than four months earlier, Tartaglia was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a blood-borne cancer that affects the body’s lymphatic system. The 5-10, 222-pound senior guard/linebacker completed his last round of chemotherapy treatments in July and had just been cleared to resume playing football.

Tartaglia, though, was still a little weak from the treatments, so he was exempted from sprints. But that didn’t mean he was going to take it easy while his teammates languished in the blazing sun. And so while his teammates ran, Tartaglia got in a little work on his core. Tobin took one look at Tartaglia and run a little harder.

“I was like, wow,” Tobin said. “He’s amazing.”

Tobin wasn’t the only one moved by Tartaglia’s work ethic.

“Sal motivates us,” added senior All-Delco running back Marlon Weathers, the leading rusher in the county as a junior. “Seeing one of our brothers go down like that and then overcome it, is really inspirational. We tip our hats to him. We do it for him. Yeah, it’s hot out here, but we’re not going to stop because he’s out there with us, doing everything we’re doing, so why can’t we do it? There are no excuses.”

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