While Bethlehem Catholic prepared to play North Schuylkill in its District 11 4A quarterfinal Saturday night, the Golden Hawks were giving a lot of thoughts to a game against another Schuylkill County school.

That was Pottsville, the team Becahi defeated 28-14 in the same round last year.

The Oct. 30, 2025, meeting was supposed to be a blowout.

Instead, Becahi found itself tied with the Tide 14-14 after three quarters before two late scores sent them on to the semifinals. So, faced with an opponent that came in at 3-7, Golden Hawks coach Joe Bernard reminded his players of what happened against Pottsville.

“All I had to do was point to last year because Pottsville was 3-7, too, and our guys thought it was going to be an easy game and we got out of that one barely with our athleticism in the fourth quarter,” Bernard said. “So, our kids remembered last year and weren’t going to let that happen again.”

In a game that took a totally different course, Becahi shook off an unproductive initial possession to score on back-to-back plays and scored three times in the final six minutes of the first quarter.

The Golden Hawks tacked on two more touchdowns in the second quarter to get it to 35-0 at halftime, meaning the entire second half was played under the mercy rule.

Becahi and North Schuylkill traded third-quarter touchdowns and the starters sat the rest of the way as the No. 2 seeded Golden Hawks closed out a 42-7 win. The victory sends them to the 4A semifinals, where they will play No. 3 Allentown Central Catholic in the latest version of the so-called Holy War.

That matchup is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at BASD Stadium. The winner will face either Blue Mountain or Lehighton for the 4A championship the weekend of Nov. 20-21.

Becahi (9-2) defeated ACCHS 35-24 on Sept. 5 in their regular-season meeting at J. Birney Crum Stadium and the Golden Hawks have won five straight over the Vikings, including a 34-31 win in last year’s semifinals.

, but everyone else stayed the course and “]We got ACC again and they have been playing well and we have been playing well,” Bernard said.

Especially playing well has been the offense, led by senior quarterback Axel Burkart, a New Hampshire commit.

Burkart entered the weekend leading District 11 with 2,839 yards passing and was third in the district with 27 TD passes. He added to those totals in one quality half of football against North Schuylkill, completing 13 of 22 passes for 193 yards and four TDs.

Three of the scoring passes went to Carter Vassa, who led the district in receiving yardage, coming in with a school-record 1,376 yards. He boosted that total with nine catches for 96 yards.

Burkart mixed in a 61-yard TD pass to Tyre Lewis and Justin Martinez, who closed the scoring with a 48-yard TD run on Becahi’s first play from scrimmage in the second half.

Burkart agreed with his coach that last year’s game against Pottsville was a motivating factor.

“During practice we talked about not having a Pottsville situation where we let a team stay around with us,” Burkart said. “All week we were drilling it into our heads that we were going to dominate. That’s exactly what we did.”

As for playing Central again, Burkart said it’s always a dogfight.

“But we have a lot of versatility with our team and we can really go anywhere with the ball,” he said. “That’s going to be hard for them and it all starts for us with practice on Monday. The Holy War is always fun during practice.”

After being denied by Southern Lehigh in the last two 4A championship games, the Golden Hawks are pumped up to get the gold this time. A title would be the 15th in program history, but the first for the seniors playing a significant role.

“It means everything to us as seniors,” Burkard said. “In my freshman year, we won the district title, but it hasn’t happened for me yet as a starter. It would mean a lot to me and all of the seniors. The biggest thing is for everyone to buy in. Everybody needs to understand that there’s something very unique and great happening here at Bethlehem Catholic. The only way it works is that if everyone buys in and invests in it.”

Bernard said he uses the standard coaching cliche about going 1-0 every week, but said now it’s really important.

“If you don’t, you’re going home,” he said. “You don’t have a chance to make it up like you do during the season. So, we stick to talking about going 1-0 and stacking good practices. That’s what we have to do next week.”

Scoring summary

North Schuylkill 0 – 0 – 7 – 0 — 7

Bethlehem Cath. 21 – 14 – 7 – 0 — 42

FIRST QUARTER

BC: Carter Vassa 42 pass from Axel Burkart (Evan Schultz kick), 6:05

BC: Vassa from Burkart (Schultz kick), 2:03

BC: Vassa 1 run (Schultz kick), 0:32

SECOND QUARTER

BC: Vassa 9 pass from Burkart (Schultz kick), 5:45

BC: Vassa 11 pass from Burkart (Schultz kick), 0:17

THIRD QUARTER

BC: Justin Martinez 48 run (Schultz kick), 11:07

NS: Bryce Kile 1 run (Wesley Urban kick), 7:28

Individual stats

RUSHING

North Schuylkill (36 for 119): Bryce Kile 12-67, TD; Brock Holmes 8-19; Daniel Brake 5-18; Francis Kowalonek 4-5; Mason Sosnoski 3-14; Kameron Roberts 3-0; Jacob Lynn 1-(-4)

Becahi (19 for 104): Justin Martinez 5-62, TD; Paul Williams 4-(-1); Anderson Gomez 3-18; Zakai Brake 3-3; Axel Burkart 2-10; Antonio Salamoni 1-11; Carter Vassa 1-1, TD

PASSING

North Schuylkill: Brock Holmes 2-7-0, 8 yards; Francis Kowalonek 0-1-0

Becahi: Axel Burkart 13-22-0, 193 yards, 4 TDs; Zakai Brake 0-1-0

RECEIVING

North Schuylkill: Xavier McNally 1-9; Bryce Kile 1-(-1)

Becahi: Carter Vassa 9-96, 3 TD, Justin Martinez 2-25; Tyre Lewis 1-61, TD; Armando Thom 1-11