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\u2019s regular-season opener against Wilson.<\/p>\n
But Henrich never gave it a thought, putting it on Reilly\u2019s right foot for the extra point.<\/p>\n
The senior quarterback delivered, and the Rough Riders held on for a 7-6 victory at Alumni Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the [Wilson] offsides penalty,\u201d Reilly recalled, \u201cI really didn\u2019t want to kick it. But we\u2019ve 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\u2019s what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catasauqua racked up 243 yards but struggled to finish drives against Wilson\u2019s aggressive, fast-flowing defense.<\/p>\n
Henrich\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 once in each half. It has happened to him throughout his playing career as a Type-1 diabetic.<\/p>\n
But Reilly\u2019s body and mind allowed him to stay calm and kick the decisive point.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get better offensively,\u201d Warriors coach Jim Brady said. \u201cDefensively, you give teams enough chances, they are going to score. That\u2019s what it came down to. They didn\u2019t have any one guy. I didn\u2019t feel that was the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson completed just 1 of 6 passes for 16 yards.<\/p>\n
The Rough Riders had scoring chances on their first three series of the game. Two incompletions stopped the first series at the Warriors\u2019 28.<\/p>\n
After Shane Bortz recovered a fumble on Wilson\u2019s first offensive play of 2026, Catasauqua was saddled by a holding call and a fourth-down incompletion.<\/p>\n
The Warriors punted before the Rough Riders drove 15 plays to the Wilson 2 on a fourth-down screen pass, but Christian Samayoa\u2019s tackle prevented the touchdown. There also was another Catasauqua penalty on the play.<\/p>\n
Wilson punted again before Catasauqua\u2019s first punt snap bounced and forced Reilly to scramble and throw an incompletion.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Patterson led all rushers with 108 yards on 14 carries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we did a better job on him in the second half,\u201d Henrich said. \u201cI thought our angles [of pursuit] were better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rough Riders also believed in each other and the team, despite trailing and failing several times in Warriors territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest part in that fourth quarter was that I really started to feel our kids started encouraging each other,\u201d Henrich added. \u201cThere was a lot of positive things being said. That\u2019s something that we haven\u2019t really had enough of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been splintered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statically speaking<\/p>\n
Catasauqua\u2019s inconsistency on offense and Wilson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Patterson accounted for 108 of the Warriors\u2019 165 yards of offense.<\/p>\n
Ryan Bonham had three tackles for loss to lead Wilson\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of guys returning on defense who took it personally in the offseason,\u201d Brady said, \u201cabout the amount of points we gave up last year. That\u2019s where we put a lot of our emphasis on, and they came out and played really tough tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joziah Martinez had a sack and another tackle for loss to lead Catasauqua\u2019s defensive effort.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Wilson visits Palisades on Thursday. Catasauqua hosts Mahanoy Area on Friday.<\/p>\n
CATASAUQUA 7, WILSON 6<\/p>\n
Wilson; 0; 6; 0; 0; 6\u00a0<\/p>\n
Catasauqua; 0; 0; 0; 7; 7<\/p>\n
ORDER OF SCORING<\/p>\n
Second quarter<\/p>\n
W: Connor Patterson 23 run (kick failed), 0:45<\/p>\n
Fourth quarter<\/p>\n
C: Ruben Concepcion 2 run (Aiden Reilly kick), 9:05<\/p>\n
TEAM STATISTICSWil\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0CatFirst 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<\/p>\n
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICSRushing: (Wilson); J\u2019son 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.<\/p>\n
Passing: (Wilson) Patterson 1-3-0, 16 yards; Matt Piparato 0-3-0; (Catasauqua) Reilly 10-23-0, 77 yards.<\/p>\n
Receiving: (Wilson) Christian Samayoa 1-16; (Catasauqua) Pacheco 3-12; Tyler Limandri 2-14; Mosby 3-19; Moises Polanco 1-10; Martinez 1-13<\/p>\n
Senior writer Tom Housenick can be reached at thousenick@mcall.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aiden Reilly was hoping Catasauqua head coach Joe Henrich opted to go for two points in a tie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,304,305,726,432],"class_list":["post-277056","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\/277056","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=277056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}