Aiden Reilly was hoping Catasauqua head coach Joe Henrich opted to go for two points in a tie game with 9 minutes, 5 seconds left in Friday night’s regular-season opener against Wilson.

But Henrich never gave it a thought, putting it on Reilly’s right foot for the extra point.

The senior quarterback delivered, and the Rough Riders held on for a 7-6 victory at Alumni Field.

“After the [Wilson] offsides penalty,” Reilly recalled, “I really didn’t want to kick it. But we’ve done it a lot in practice. My teammates believed in me. My coaches believed in me. So, I knew I could put it through the uprights, and that’s what I did.”

Catasauqua racked up 243 yards but struggled to finish drives against Wilson’s aggressive, fast-flowing defense.

Henrich’s Rough Riders finally put together a 13-play, 68-yard scoring drive aided by a personal foul call, a pair of third-down conversions and another on fourth down.

Ruben Concepcion bulled over from the 2-yard line early in the fourth quarter to set up Reilly, who threw up twice in the game – once in each half. It has happened to him throughout his playing career as a Type-1 diabetic.

But Reilly’s body and mind allowed him to stay calm and kick the decisive point.

Wilson had two more possessions to regain the lead but could not sustain a drive in a second half that was marred by cramping by both teams.

“We have to get better offensively,” Warriors coach Jim Brady said. “Defensively, you give teams enough chances, they are going to score. That’s what it came down to. They didn’t have any one guy. I didn’t feel that was the case.

“We need to get a passing game going. We need to sit back in a pocket and form a pocket and give the quarterback time, and go with what we have planned.”

Wilson completed just 1 of 6 passes for 16 yards.

The Rough Riders had scoring chances on their first three series of the game. Two incompletions stopped the first series at the Warriors’ 28.

After Shane Bortz recovered a fumble on Wilson’s first offensive play of 2026, Catasauqua was saddled by a holding call and a fourth-down incompletion.

The Warriors punted before the Rough Riders drove 15 plays to the Wilson 2 on a fourth-down screen pass, but Christian Samayoa’s tackle prevented the touchdown. There also was another Catasauqua penalty on the play.

Wilson punted again before Catasauqua’s first punt snap bounced and forced Reilly to scramble and throw an incompletion.

Two plays later, Wilson quarterback Connor Patterson ran around right end on a quarterback keeper for a 23-yard score with 45 seconds left in the first half.

Patterson led all rushers with 108 yards on 14 carries.

“I thought we did a better job on him in the second half,” Henrich said. “I thought our angles [of pursuit] were better.”

The Rough Riders also believed in each other and the team, despite trailing and failing several times in Warriors territory.

“The biggest part in that fourth quarter was that I really started to feel our kids started encouraging each other,” Henrich added. “There was a lot of positive things being said. That’s something that we haven’t really had enough of.

“We’ve been splintered.”

Statically speaking

Catasauqua’s inconsistency on offense and Wilson’s determination were the only factors keeping the Rough Riders out of the end zone. They rushed for 166 yards and Reilly threw for 77 more.

Patterson accounted for 108 of the Warriors’ 165 yards of offense.

Ryan Bonham had three tackles for loss to lead Wilson’s defense.

“We had a lot of guys returning on defense who took it personally in the offseason,” Brady said, “about the amount of points we gave up last year. That’s where we put a lot of our emphasis on, and they came out and played really tough tonight.”

Joziah Martinez had a sack and another tackle for loss to lead Catasauqua’s defensive effort.

Up next

Wilson visits Palisades on Thursday. Catasauqua hosts Mahanoy Area on Friday.

CATASAUQUA 7, WILSON 6

Wilson; 0; 6; 0; 0; 6 

Catasauqua; 0; 0; 0; 7; 7

ORDER OF SCORING

Second quarter

W: Connor Patterson 23 run (kick failed), 0:45

Fourth quarter

C: Ruben Concepcion 2 run (Aiden Reilly kick), 9:05

TEAM STATISTICSWil     CatFirst downs; 9; 17Rushing Yds; 31-149; 39-166Passing Yds; 16; 77Passing; 1-6-0; 10-23-0Punts; 3-34.3; 1-31.0Fumbles-lost; 2-1; 0-0Penalties-yards; 7-62; 2-15

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICSRushing: (Wilson); J’son Johnson 11-29; Ryan Bonham 5-14; Connor Patterson 14-108, TD; team 1-(-2); (Catasauqua) Aiden Reilly 8-41; Solomon Mosby 6-25; Ruben Concepcion 12-73, TD; Omar Pacheco 2-2; Joziah Martinez 9-29.

Passing: (Wilson) Patterson 1-3-0, 16 yards; Matt Piparato 0-3-0; (Catasauqua) Reilly 10-23-0, 77 yards.

Receiving: (Wilson) Christian Samayoa 1-16; (Catasauqua) Pacheco 3-12; Tyler Limandri 2-14; Mosby 3-19; Moises Polanco 1-10; Martinez 1-13

Senior writer Tom Housenick can be reached at thousenick@mcall.com