![\"Freedom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TMC-L-FreedomFootball36-1.jpg\")
Freedom head coach Jason Roeder works with his team Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, during their football practice in Bethlehem. Freedom is coming off a tough season by their standards. (Monica Cabrera\/The Morning Call)<\/p>\nJason Roeder often gets to the point faster than anyone when it comes to postgame interviews and it\u2019s the same with preseason conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to mince words; last year was a tough year for us,\u201d said Roeder, who has been in charge at his school longer than any other EPC head coach as he starts his 22nd season. \u201cIt was a tough season and even tougher way to end the year. When you take losses as hard as we do around here, and you\u2019re not used to that, it definitely motivates you in the offseason. It definitely gets you excited to start playing games again and get the bad taste out of your mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday in the park, at least Saturday afternoons in Bethlehem Area School District Stadium, weren\u2019t enjoyable for the Patriots as they dropped their season opener to Downingtown West 47-7 and then closed their season with back-to-back losses to Christmas City rival Liberty in day games at BASD with the second one coming in the District 11 playoffs.<\/p>\n
Those were not happy scenes for a proud program that suffered its first losing season (5-6) since 2013.<\/p>\n
Freedom head coach Jason Roeder works with his team Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, during their football practice in Bethlehem. Freedom is coming off a tough season by their standards. (Monica Cabrera\/The Morning Call)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got into our offseason a little earlier last year with the early end to our season,\u201d Roeder said. \u201cWe put in the work necessary and made the gains necessary to be successful physically. Now it comes down to the mental aspect and really focusing on execution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s hopes for a big rebound start with the offensive backfield where Michael Stofanak returns at quarterback and Lashawn Johnson, coming back from an injury, and Jahaire Hughes give the team a strong 1-2 punch in the running game.<\/p>\n
Stofanak threw for 1,465 yards and 15 touchdowns last season but also had 11 interceptions. He has worked hard to reduce that number.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough year for sure and there was a bunch of adversity we had to handle,\u201d Stofanak said. \u201cThat will help us going into this year with the guys we have back. We had to deal with the same stuff and went through challenges together. It helped us build up our chemistry. I had a good offseason and got stronger and faster. I\u2019m feeling more confidence with my throws and more confidence in reading defenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he will rely on his line and running backs to take off some pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll five of those guys up front work well as a group and Ky Moore is the center this year and we\u2019ve got great chemistry because we played on the [Bethlehem Township] Bulldogs together,\u201d Stofanak said. \u201cI am happy he\u2019s the one right in front of me. And then you go across the board, and you\u2019ve got Izzy DeJesus, Jaylen Hall, Gabe Vazquez and Caleb Reiss are a great group of guys who work hard and try their best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides giving Stofanak time, the same five guys will try to create space for Johnson and Hughes.<\/p>\n
![\"Freedom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TMC-L-FreedomFootball30-1.jpg\")
Freedom High School Football players run drills in the evening of Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, during their football practice in Bethlehem. (Monica Cabrera\/The Morning Call)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great to be back out there,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cFootball is my life so to not be able to be out there on the field last year at the end hurt me. I just want to ball my heart out and put everything on the field. I try not to think about getting hurt again. I worked hard to get back on the road to recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said last year\u2019s team lacked maturity and leadership, but that won\u2019t be a problem this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot more of those things this year and I think we have a really good year,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a few big hitters to start the season, but I think we can beat those teams. That would be give us a great confidence boost and I really feel we can go all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roeder isn\u2019t in the prediction business, but he likes this group.<\/p>\n
![\"Freedom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TMC-L-FreedomFootball18-1.jpg\")
Freedom High School players run drills Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, during their football practice in Bethlehem. Freedom is coming off a tough season by their standards. (Monica Cabrera\/The Morning Call)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the size, the speed and the athleticism to be successful, but it comes down to the mental aspect of the game,\u201d he said. \u201cThe execution piece is also important. It\u2019s how we geared our offseason and looked at the way we teach and the way we coach and the way the kids can absorb. We see that\u2019s paying off so far. We\u2019re making less mental mistakes and you hope that continues when you turn the lights on and do it for real.\u201d<\/p>\n
3 tidbits on the Patriots<\/p>\n
(1) Welcome board<\/p>\n
Former Bethlehem Catholic head coach Mike Palos has joined the staff and will coach the receivers.<\/p>\n
Earl Jenkins, the father of former Patriots quarterback Jared Jenkins, has returned to the staff after following his son\u2019s college career. Jenkins will coach the safeties.<\/p>\n
Byran Haas, a longtime coach who was part of the program\u2019s District 11 championship staffs in 2018 and 2021, has returned after a few seasons away. He will be a volunteer coach.<\/p>\n
(2) Numbers game<\/p>\n
Freedom has 55 kids on the roster in grades 10-12.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d like a few more,\u201d Roeder said. \u201cBut the quality is there.\u201d<\/p>\n
(3) Lots of labor before Labor Day<\/p>\n
Freedom has a tough early-season schedule, traveling to Downingtown West and hosting Parkland in the first two weeks. Those two programs were a combined 20-4 last year with the Trojans reaching the District 11 6A final. The Whippets were the No. 3 seed entering the District 1 6A tournament but were upset by No. 14 Owen J Roberts, 10-7, in the first round. Downingtown West returns Amari Cannon at running back after he scored three TDs against Freedom in last year\u2019s 47-7 Week 1 win at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Patriots close out the nonleague schedule against Phillipsburg in Week 3 and Roeder is excited about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it gets any tougher than that and then we play Nazareth in Week 4,\u201d Roeder said. \u201cI\u2019m an old EPC guy and we played P\u2019burg when I was at Becahi and then I actually coached at North Hunterdon for seven years and we played P\u2019burg every year when I was there. We\u2019ve had P\u2019burgover here for a lot of years in the summer for 7-on-7 stuff. We know a lot of their guys and they know ours, so it\u2019s an exciting matchup for us in Week 3.\u201d<\/p>\n
The schedule<\/p>\n
Scrimmage<\/p>\n
Saturday: at Central Bucks East, 10 a.m.<\/p>\n
Regular season<\/p>\n
(All games at 7 p.m. unless noted)<\/p>\n
Aug. 28: at Downingtown West<\/p>\n
Sept 4: host Parkland<\/p>\n
Sept. 11: host Phillipsburg<\/p>\n
Sept. 18: at Nazareth<\/p>\n
Sept. 25: host Dieruff<\/p>\n
Oct. 1: at East Stroudsburg North<\/p>\n
Oct. 9: host Bethlehem Catholic<\/p>\n
Oct. 16: at Northampton<\/p>\n
Oct. 23: host Easton<\/p>\n
Oct. 31: at Liberty, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Roeder often gets to the point faster than anyone when it comes to postgame interviews and it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,304,305,726,432],"class_list":["post-270468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-high-school-football","tag-high-school-sports","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}