Written by: Brendan Ricciardi on Tuesday, August 30th, 2022
Crawford leaving em in the dust https://www.bqpictures.com/
Football is back in Delaware County, and the race to earn a Trip to the Chap at Cumberland Valley High School for the PIAA State Football Championships is on.
While it doesn’t quite have as good of a ring to it as Hershey, two Delco Football teams (Garnet Valley, Strath Haven) were one win away from finding themselves in the State Championship in 2021, and this past weekend gave us our first look at some teams who could potentially find themselves looking at a deep playoff run in 2022.
Week 1 saw some records nearly broken, some non-conference rivalries renewed, and a bit of chaos as well.
The Chester Clippers do not care about your feelings
The Chester Clippers won a football game by a score of 80-0 on Saturday.
No, that is not a typo.
According to Delco Sports historian Dave Burman, that is the second most points EVER scored in a Delco Football game behind the 1921 Thanksgiving Day battle between Lansdowne and Swarthmore, with Lansdowne winning 84-0.
Both of those schools don’t even exist anymore.
The Clippers went into this season with a Freshman QB in Jalen Harris, and he put on an absolute clinic against Philadelphia’s Central High School.
Harris completed 13 of his 15 passes, throwing for a whopping seven touchdowns on 311 yards passing. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, where you’re playing, when you’re playing, etc., a performance like that for a Freshman in his first varsity game is a remarkable accomplishment and should be recognized as such.
WR Cymeer Brown was Harris’s favorite target on the day, as they connected five times for 176 yards, with four of those completions going for touchdowns. WR Dominic Toy had a big day as well, catching seven balls for 128 yards, including two of Harris’s touchdown passes.
Not only was the Chester offense firing on all cylinders, the Chester defense was excellent as well. The Clippers forced seven turnovers in this game, with five fumbles recovered and two interceptions.
Daron Harris and Colin Ferrell both had an interception, Charles Thompson recovered two fumbles, while Deandre Pee, Jerrell Palmer, and LaFenis Mays Jr. all recovered a fumble themselves.
Noble Thompson had a shutdown game with ten tackles for the Clippers, twice as much as any other player on the team.
The main storyline from this game wasn’t just about it being a blowout, it’s the fact that Chester simply does not care about any of your unwritten rules about sportsmanship and taking your foot of the gas.
They came to the field to play as hard as they could for 48 minutes, and they had no intention of taking it easy. As someone who has been on the wrong side of blowouts before, running up the score is way less demoralizing than watching a team just not even try anymore because they feel bad.
There will be critics who say that wasn’t good sportsmanship and the coaches should not have allowed that to happen, but Chester is going to play their brand of football and they don’t care what anyone outside of their locker room thinks.
The Clippers will be back in action for another non-conference matchup against John Bartram this Saturday, 9/3, 11:00 AM at Chester.
Upper Darby and Monsignor Bonner game ends abruptly
There was a very scary situation at Monsignor Bonner on Friday Night, with the game ending early in the fourth quarter as there was allegedly a loud bang and a claim that someone with a gun was in the vicinity.
Players, coaches, band members, friends, family, and everyone in between rushed through the field and on to the streets as they looked to get to safety.
The Upper Darby police department later shut down the claims of any gunshots, but did say there was a physical fight at the game. Only one injury was reported, and that was a result of the rush of people trying to get out of the stadium.
At the time of the incident, Monsignor Bonner was leading Upper Darby by a score of 12-0 early in the fourth quarter. Jalil Hall got Monsignor Bonner on the board with a 23-yard touchdown reception from Colin Finnegan, and Avery Hankey extend that lead with a 27-yard touchdown run.
While we have yet to see the entire aftermath of this situation, we are very thankful that no one was seriously injured and everyone got home safely. Bonner was awarded the win for the game.
Upper Darby will be back in action Friday, 9/3, with a game that was originally supposed to be at Upper Darby but has been moved to Garnet Valley High School. The switch of the game was not related to this incident.
Monsignor Bonner will be back in action Friday night as well, as they have a non-conference game @ The Haverford School, with a 7:00 PM start.
VanWyk starts off new era of Garnet Valley Football with a win
After 35 seasons as the Head Coach of the Garnet Valley Football team, Mike Ricci announced his retirement following the 2021 season.
Ricci had a legendary run with the Jaguars as he won 261 games, second most in Delaware County history behind Strath Haven’s Kevin Clancy (332). Among those wins were eight Central League Championships, three District Championships, and a trip to the State Championship in 2007.
And do you know who the starting quarterback was for that 2007 Garnet Valley team?
None other than Eric VanWyk, the new face of the Jaguars.
VanWyk, who has also been an assistant coach for the last ten years alongside Ricci, was named the new Head Coach of this program heading into the 2022 season.
His first challenge would be a rematch of the second round of the District 1 6A tournament last year with Central Bucks (CB) West.
Garnet Valley took care of business against CB West last year, handling them 41-13 en route to a District Championship and state semifinal appearance.
This time around it was a much closer game that required some late-game heroics.
The game was scoreless after a quarter, but the Garnet Valley offense got on the board after Jason Bernard ran for 54 yards down into CB West territory, and Joseph Checchio punched in the first touchdown of the season for the Jaguars. Garnet Valley would go for 2, and would be unsuccessful.
CB West would answer right back on the next drive and jumped ahead 7-6, and that was a score that looked for a while like it might be the last points of the game for either side.
With just under seven minutes left in the game, the Jaguars began what they knew would likely be the final drive of the game if executed properly. After a couple of huge fourth down conversions including one from QB Matt Mesaros to TE Drew Van Horn, Garnet Valley was in the red zone with time ticking down.
The Jaguars called on Jason Bernard, and he delivered with a three-yard touchdown run with just 16 seconds left to play. Joseph Checchio ran in the two-point conversion, and Jake McDowell iced it with an interception to end the game, his second pick of the evening.
Eric VanWyk starts his career off on the right note, and as mentioned above, his Jaguars will now host Upper Darby on Friday, 9/3, at 7:00 PM.
Strath Haven rushing attack showed no signs of rust
As mentioned in the Garnet Valley story above, no one has more wins in Delaware County Football history than Strath Haven Panthers Head Coach Kevin Clancy.
Clancy’s Wing-T offense has led to two State Championships, 12 District Championships, and 11 Central League Championships in his time.
Fresh off a District 1 5A Championship and state semifinal appearance in 2021, the Panthers were dominant on the ground once again in Week 1 against Interboro.
The Panthers took down the Bucs 27-13, and they did not throw a single pass all game.
Out of 49 rushing attempts for the Panthers, Senior Anthony Crawford had 23 of those, rushing for 151 yards and 3 TD’s. The longest of those coming on a 52-yard score in the second quarter for the first Panthers touchdown of the year.
Not only did Crawford have a huge performance on the ground, he also led the team with 13 tackles as well. Aidan Sutherland had 10 tackles and an interception for the Panthers.
Senior Quarterback Sam Milligan is back running the Panthers offense for the second straight year, and he carried eight times for 55 yards, with a one-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. Milligan is a District Champion in Football, Wrestling, and Baseball, and will use that experience to help try and bring Strath Haven back to the State playoffs.
Bob Fooskas also had 90 yards on seven touches, Austin Conner had 42 yards on six attempts, and Chase Nangle carried the ball four times for 21 yards.
In total, the Strath Haven offense ran for 358 yards on 49 carries, a trend that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.
The Panthers will be back on action this Thursday, 9/1, 7:00 PM at King Field as they host a non-conference matchup with Kensington.
Lower Merion wins big over Pottstown
The Lower Merion Football program continues to show improvement, and that resulted in a huge 35-0 win over Pottstown in Week 1.
The Aces took down Pottstown 48-25 when the two teams met last season, and they wanted no part of letting Pottstown get revenge on their game as they put together an outstanding performance both offensively and defensively.
RB Ben Booker led the way offensively for Lower Merion, rushing for three touchdowns on 135 yards. The hard-nosed runner scored all three of his touchdowns inside the Pottstown ten yard line.
Junior QB Mekhai Smith had two passing touchdowns in the game as well, connecting with Sam Zheng for a 38-yard score, and Aidan Fliszar on a 15-yard pass.
It’s going to take a lot more to silence the critics of a Lower Merion program that has not had a winning season since they went 9-2 in 2017, but bad football teams don’t win games 35-0.
The Aces will get the chance to show off their growth in their first conference matchup this Friday, 9/2, as they travel to Conestoga for a 7:00 PM start.
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