Bethlehem Catholic 34, Allentown Central Catholic 31 \u2013 Rapid Recap<\/p>\n
A tenacious defensive effort helped Bethlehem Catholic<\/a>\u2019s football team overcome an 11-point halftime deficit and defeat rival Allentown Central Catholic<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\n The second-seeded Golden Hawks topped the third-seeded Vikings 34-31 in the District 11 Class 4A semifinals at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium. <\/p>\n Turning point: Central Catholic had a 24-13 lead early in the third quarter when Bethlehem Catholic linebacker Emery Oberholzer recovered a fumble at the Vikings\u2019 30-yard line. Four plays later, quarterback Axel Burkart connected with wideout Carter Vassa for a 13-yard touchdown in the back of the end zone. Aaron Geiger\u2019s extra point trimmed the deficit to 24-20 with 7:37 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n On the following drive, Vikings quarterback Patrick Cahill was sacked by defensive lineman Jonathan Ayache on fourth-and-5 at the Golden Hawks\u2019 33.<\/p>\n Cayden Vassa, who played QB and tailback on Thursday, ripped off a 38-yard run to put Bethlehem Catholic into the red zone. He completed the series with a 5-yard scoring rush, and the Hawks took a 27-24 advantage with 3:45 remaining in the third quarter.<\/p>\n Burkart extended the lead to 34-24 with a 17-yard TD burst with 9:44 left in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n Top performers: Becahi\u2019s defensive front tallied five sacks in the second half, including back-to-back tackles for loss to seal the result in the closing minute. Burkart registered a strip-sack, which Oberholzer recovered, to halt the Vikings\u2019 final possession.<\/p>\n Burkart and defensive lineman Caiden Charmant both had two sacks on Thursday.<\/p>\n Cayden Vassa rushed for 145 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries. Burkart added 67 yards and a score on the ground to go with 40 receiving yards.<\/p>\n What it means: Becahi (8-4) advances to meet top-seeded Southern Lehigh (11-1) in next week\u2019s district final. The Spartans routed Blue Mountain 55-14<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\n The Hawks have now defeated the Vikings in four straight meetings.<\/p>\n Central Catholic closed the season 6-6 in Jacob Reichard\u2019s first year as head coach.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethlehem Catholic 34, Allentown Central Catholic 31 \u2013 Rapid Recap A tenacious defensive effort helped Bethlehem Catholic\u2019s football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-27383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27383","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=27383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}