The first week of local high school football in the Lehigh Valley made many rethink preseason rankings and top contenders across the nearby leagues. Week 2 was all about powerhouses getting back on track, including last year\u2019s defending District 11 6A champions.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a recap from some of the top games from Week 3 on Friday night around the region:<\/p>\n
Freedom 32, Phillipsburg 31<\/p>\n
Phillipsburg entered Friday night\u2019s showdown against Freedom with the potential to leave non-conference play as the top team in the EPC, even if they aren\u2019t officially part of the conference anymore.<\/p>\n
The Stateliners shocked Parkland in Week 1, handled Emmaus in Week 2 and traveled to BASD Stadium to take on Freedom with an eighth 3-0 start in the last decade on the line. It got off to a dream start as Dom Bracco converted a third-and-13 on the opening drive before punching in an 18-yard touchdown run to open the scoring.<\/p>\n
Freedom\u2019s Lashawn Johnson responded with the first six of 17 unanswered points for the Patriots on a three-yard touchdown run late in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Nathan Stannard added a 36-yard field goal after Bracco lost a fumble and senior quarterback Michael Stofanak hit a wide-open Marquise Chapman rolling to his dominant left to make it 17-7 with 1:20 remaining in the first half. Javien Moreno\u2019s 49-yard reception set up the score, but Hunter Garrison\u2019s 47-yard field goal pulled Phillipsburg within one score going into halftime.<\/p>\n
Bracco uncorked a 50-yard bomb to Amir Heath, leading to a game-tying touchdown run by Xavier Campbell-Graham from two yards away to tie the game at 17 early in the third. Phillipsburg capitalized on a fumble by Freedom this time as Campbell-Graham escaped for a 49-yard touchdown run to give the Liners their first lead since 7-0, although a missed extra point kept it at 23-17 going to the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for the Patriots to regain the lead as Davyan Moore\u2019s fourth receiving touchdown of the season of at least 58 yards put Freedom ahead 24-23 after Stannard\u2019s PAT. Continuing the back-and-forth trend, Phillipsburg extended its drive with a gutsy fourth-down conversion and Bracco scampered for a 34-yard touchdown compounded by a two-point conversion to make it 31-24 with 7:20 remaining.<\/p>\n
Freedom channeled its best Phillipsburg impression and committed to the running game, leading to Johnson\u2019s second rushing touchdown of the night and a 2-point conversion from the senior running back after a Stateliner penalty on the PAT.<\/p>\n
Completely against the flow of the game, it was actually a defense that decided an early candidate for the game of the year in local high school football.<\/p>\n
After Phillipsburg worked its way into Freedom territory, thanks in part to another fourth-down conversion, Freedom junior Ky Moore blew up a jet sweep in the backfield and helped the Patriots hold on for a fourth-and-20 stop to clinch a 32-31 instant classic win.<\/p>\n
Phillipsburg (2-1) returns to New Jersey competition next week but will get one more chance to knock off an EPC opponent on Thanksgiving against Easton.<\/p>\n
Freedom (2-1) gets back on the right track following last week\u2019s loss to Parkland and moves on to face red-hot Nazareth (2-1) next week on the road.<\/p>\n
Parkland 44, Easton 14<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s District 11 6A championship game between two undefeated titans \u2013 Easton and Parkland \u2013 was all about the Red Rovers and the end of their 15-year championship drought in a 42-17 romp at BASD Stadium.<\/p>\n
Friday night\u2019s rematch, even at a raucous Cottingham Stadium, was all about the Trojans.<\/p>\n
The Parkland defense denied Easton on the opening drive after the Red Rovers elected to receive the first-half kickoff and went right down the field as David Scherb\u2019s 14-yard touchdown reception capped the scoring drive. TJ Lawrence turned his own 30-yard run into a five-yard touchdown early in the second quarter to double that advantage before a trick play made it 21-0 with 8:33 left in the half.<\/p>\n
Scherb took a handoff from quarterback Finn Coen this time and found Blake Nassry in stride downfield for a 40-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
Easton\u2019s nine-yard touchdown connection between Zahviay McGurn and Sean McPeek was enough to stop the bleeding but not the eventual onslaught from the Trojans.<\/p>\n
Trevon Tyler had the momentum-shifting kickoff return in last year\u2019s title game, but it was Jackson Geroulo who had the immediate response to Easton\u2019s touchdown with a big return that set up Nassry\u2019s second big reception and Lawrence\u2019s second touchdown of the night from 17 yards out to make it 28-7. A fourth-and-goal conversion from the Trojans 10 injected life into the home crowd as McGurn connected with Amin Fideen to pull within 28-14 at halftime.<\/p>\n
A fumble recovery for the Red Rovers on the first drive of the second half instilled even more belief into the home crowd, but a defensive stand and a third touchdown run by Lawrence deflated the rally and put Parkland ahead 35-14 going to the final quarter. A field goal from Andrea Giroudon and a 12-yard touchdown run by Tycen Norman wrapped up a 44-14 win for the visitors to help ease a bit of the pain from last year\u2019s district championship defeat.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Catholic 35, Berks Catholic 14<\/p>\n
When Bethlehem Catholic held on for a 48-41 win over Berks Catholic last season, Axel Burkart was playing predominantly tight end for the Golden Hawks offense as Cayden Vassa accounted for four touchdowns at quarterback in the shootout win.<\/p>\n
Burkart, who played plenty of snaps last season at quarterback in relief of Vassa or as a change of pace, orchestrated a brilliant offensive performance of his own as the senior quarterback threw it all over the yard in the victory over the Saints. It\u2019s the third consecutive loss to District 11 opponents for Berks Catholic after falling to Notre Dame-Green Pond and Executive Education to begin the season.<\/p>\n
After a scoreless first quarter, Burkart started to shine with an outstanding throw on a bootleg to his left into the front corner of the end zone, where he connected with Carter Vassa for an 11-yard touchdown on 3rd-and-goal. On the ensuing drive, the pair connected for another score when Burkart threaded the needle down the right sideline for a 31-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
Vassa found a soft spot in the zone, made the catch, slipped between two defenders and raced into the end zone on his ninth reception just a quarter and a half into the game. Burkart\u2019s legs doubled the advantage to 28-0 with a four-yard touchdown heading into halftime and a seven-yard keeper on a read option on the first drive of the second half.<\/p>\n
Justin Martinez carried the final play of the third quarter into the end zone to give the Golden Hawks a commanding 35-7 lead and all but clinch a third straight win to start the season for the second straight year. Coach Joe Bernard\u2019s team will hope to finish the regular season better than last year\u2019s 3-4 EPC record and claim a district title in a brand new 4A classification. That pursuit starts with a Saturday night showdown against Easton next week.<\/p>\n
Other notable local scores<\/p>\n
\u2013 Nazareth rolled past Allentown Central Catholic with three touchdowns in each of the first two quarters to enact the mercy rule in the second half thanks to a 42-7 lead over the Vikings. The Blue Eagles improved to 2-1 heading into the official start of conference play against Freedom next Friday night.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Emmaus picked up its first win of the season after a pair of hard-fought losses to Neshaminy and Phillipsburg, dominating Scranton from start to finish in a 42-0 victory at home ahead of EPC play opening up. The Green Hornets host Pocono Mountain East next Friday as coach Harold Fairclough\u2019s group aims to get back to .500 before a premier matchup against Nazareth the following week.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Palmerton and Saucon Valley crushed Palisades and Catasauqua, respectively, as the Blue Bombers improved to 3-0 and the Panthers moved above .500 to 2-1. Southern Lehigh handled Jim Thorpe on the road to continue its unbeaten start to the season ahead of back-to-back home games against Wilson and Lehighton. Notre Dame-GP continued the trend of Colonial League beatdowns with a blowout win over Salisbury at Fisher Stadium to move to 3-0 on the season.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Tamaqua erased a 10-point second-half deficit against Marian Catholic to win 12-10 while Delaware Valley did the same thing to defeat East Stroudsburg South 13-10. Evan Garrett\u2019s late touchdown run helped Pocono Mountain East finish off William Allen to round out the local action on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Derek Bast is a freelance reporter who can be found on Twitter\/X at @derek_bast or reached by email at derekbast11@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first week of local high school football in the Lehigh Valley made many rethink preseason rankings and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,305,726,432],"class_list":["post-284432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-high-school-sports","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284432","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=284432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}