Second round of football District 1 playoffs means a home game and tough matchup for Raiders
By Dave Conard, Staff Writer, CoatesvilleTimes.com
COATESVILLE — Any high school football fan that has stepped outside in the last few days as the November chill has hit the air big time in the Keystone state, knows that this is a special time of year.
While this week hundreds of schools are getting ready for the big Thanksgiving Day show down with a long time rival or cross-town foe, a select few prepare to take the next step toward the most coveted of all high school titles as State football championship.
Chatter about state rankings, division one prospects and hype aside, Friday’s nights elite eight round of the class AAAA District One playoffs will go along way to determining who will represent the eastern half of the state in Hershey in the title game.
The #15 seeded Pennsbury Falcons stunned second seeded Abington last week, which they dropped their regular season meeting to 20-7, by a score of 35-24 to earn the right to travel to Red Raiders stadium in Coatesville.
The Red Raiders (9-2 overall, 5-1 league), fresh off of their 60-28 drubbing of Pac-10 front-runner Spring-Ford, will welcome the Falcons with an offense they may finally be clicking on all cylinders.
“We finally got it all together tonight,” said Coatesville head coach Matt Ortega. “We have been fighting all year to get everything going at the same time and tonight it finally clicked, our passing game has really come along in the last few games.
Led by senior signal caller Manny Stocker, who threw for five touchdowns and ran for another as Coatesville scored on all nine possessions last Friday torching the Rams for more than 500 yards of total offense.
The Red Raiders trio of Kyle Kerrick, Andre Boggs and Chris Jones will provide a challenge for the Falcons defense that has allowed a total of 157 points all season and only six touchdowns through the air.
Dae Hon Chung, who finished atop of the rushing yards battle in the Ches-Mont and has run for five touchdowns in the past two weeks while eating up 350 yards on the ground, will provide a valuable reinforcement as the forecast call for high winds closing in at game time.
Pennsbury (8-3 overall, 5-2 league), who is no slouch when it come to ramming the ball down opponents throats, will again rely on the outstanding play of 6-foot-6, 310 pound J.J Denman, who has verbally committed to Penn State to lead the battle of the trenches, to pave the way for tailback Daquan Mack.
“We were written off by people before the season started,” said Pennsbury senior Daquan Mack after a thrilling win over C.R. South handing the #1 seeded Golden Hawks their only loss of the season “We took that to heart, we want to prove to everyone that we can hang with anyone. This was a playoff game for us tonight as they got us pretty good last year.”
Mack and company will get that chance on Friday as the Pennsbury defense and the quartet of Tony Donovan, Tommy Hose, Shane Letukas and Shawn Pepper, who have been instrumental in Falcons success will be truly tested, with the winner of the game moving onto the semi final against the winner of the #14 Neshaminy vs. #11 North Penn.
Following a week in which Council Rock South and Garnet Valley were the only two teams of the top eight seeds to survive, the district title is up for grabs with #13 Central Bucks South (a 52-24 winner over Plymouth Whitemarsh) traveling to #5 Garnet Valley, while the top seeded Golden Hawks host Downingtown East, who defeated Henderson 28-17 in a Ches-Mont rematch.
With both squads in relative good health and playing about as well as they have at any point in the season, Friday night match up should be worth the price of admission.
Projection– Coatesville 34-Pennsbury 28
