Bethlehem Catholic<\/a> fielded too many offensive weapons to stay off the scoreboard for long. A little bit of luck didn\u2019t hurt, either.<\/p>\nA steady diet of hard running by Justin Martinez and short completions \u2014 including a fourth-and-5 toss for 10 yards to Vassa \u2014 advanced the Golden Hawks to Liberty\u2019s 16. Burkart tried to find a receiver in the seam on the right side. Linebacker Mekkhi McKenzie reached high and deflected the ball only to have it be redirected to wide receiver Armando Thom who caught it in stride for the score three minutes into the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Liberty immediately struck back. Senior receiver Zyaire Davis received the kickoff at the 13. He slowly made his way toward the Hurricanes\u2019 sideline. When Davis saw a hole, he hit high-gear in an instant and high-stepped it to the goal line for the 87-yard touchdown. The PAT try never materialized and Liberty trailed 7-6.<\/p>\n
Two plays into the next series, Burkart let loose with a pass that was in the air for more than 50 yards, and Tyre Lewis raced under it for an apparent 77-yard touchdown. A holding call negated the score, however. <\/p>\n
Not to be deterred, running back Antonio Salomoni took a screen pass for 37 yards. Burkart feathered in a pass for a 30-yard gain that Thom completed with an over-the-shoulder catch. Lewis gained 13 on a slant pass. Two plays later, Vassa lined up in a full-house backfield and scored off right tackle from the 2.<\/p>\n
The Hawks forced a three-and-out, and the offense was back on the move with Vassa displaying his deep array of skills on a 27-yard touchdown catch. On two previous out pattern receptions for first downs, Vassa simply toe-tapped the sideline before stepping out of bounds. This time, Vassa caught the ball, stopped his momentum before spinning away from the sideline and sprinted past the surprised defenders for the score.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they play off, I go short. If they play up, I go deep,\u201d said Vassa who recently opened up his recruiting after decommitting from Towson University. \u201cYeah, I set that up. I kept running comebacks because they were playing back. I came back, turned it back up and Axel put it on the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernard\u2019s squad nearly scored again before halftime. With 59 seconds left, Becahi moved from its 26 to Liberty\u2019s 3 primarily on a 61-yard Burkart-to-Vassa completion. However, Liberty senior Chase Parr crashed through to sack Burkart on the final play of the half.<\/p>\n
When Lewis ran unattended through the middle of Liberty\u2019s secondary for a 47-yard touchdown reception less than three minutes into the third quarter for a 28-6 lead, it appeared the Golden Hawks were on their way to a mercy-rule win.<\/p>\n
Liberty had other ideals. Running back Treyce Whitlow took a snap in a wildcat formation and launched a pass to Davis, one of the premier receivers in the region. Davis wrested the jump ball away from a defender and dragged two tacklers to the 8.<\/p>\n
Two plays later McKenzie scored from the 1. The Hurricanes got back on scoring schedule with Davis catching the two-point conversion pass from quarterback Alsaiah Gross.<\/p>\n
On the ensuing kickoff, Christian Hackett sent a high, short kick near Becahi\u2019s 35 that Whitlow sprinted to and recovered on one bounce at the 33 as a pair of Golden Hawks watched in disbelief. On first down, Gross froze the defense with a play-action fake and found Davis behind the secondary for the touchdown.<\/p>\n
Two touchdowns in nine seconds and Hackett\u2019s PAT suddenly sliced the deficit to 28-21.<\/p>\n
Wounded but not scarred, Bethlehem Catholic regrouped and methodically pounded out a nine-play, 73-yard drive that culminated in Vassa\u2019s 13-yard touchdown catch on a fade pass from Burkart.<\/p>\n
Martinez went over 100 yards with a 12-yard touchdown run with 4:49 remaining to boost the margin to 42-21. He added another gain of 5 to finish with 111 yards on 17 carries.<\/p>\n
Liberty completed the scoring when Gross found a leaping Greg Tillman for a 27-yard TD reception on fourth down with 3:23 to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t play our greatest game, but we didn\u2019t panic,\u201d Bernard said. \u201cWe felt pretty confident. When we didn\u2019t run the ball for anything in the first half, we came out and ran the ball in the second half, made some adjustments and we got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernard said it was a benefit his team had Liberty on deck after the emotional loss to Nazareth that eliminated it from contention for the division title.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing about that loss was the fact that we had to play a rivalry team right away,\u201d Bernard said. \u201cIt got our attention right back and focus the way it needed to be. It was a good thing that we were playing Liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learned from last week,\u201d Joynes said. \u201cIt was a bad game, but we came back and showed here today. It\u2019s been 15 years or so since we got it (city championship), and it\u2019s good to go back with it. This was a goal at the beginning of the season. It\u2019s the first step and next step is districts and then on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Golden Hawks conclude the regular season at Northampton next Friday before moving on to the District 11 Class 4A playoffs.<\/p>\n
But for 24 hours, with the first 30-to-40 minutes featuring a victory walk back to campus, Bethlehem Catholic savored its city crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d Bernard said. \u201cWhen you talk about certain things, this is big for our program, our school, our community, the Beca family. It\u2019s been 15 years, whatever it\u2019s been, so I\u2019m really proud and happy for everybody to enjoy it.\u201d:<\/p>\n
Liberty will try again next Saturday afternoon to earn a victory over a city rival when it meets Freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Convincing a burly football lineman to walk a mile uphill isn\u2019t the easiest task. But there are exceptions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-313703","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\/313703","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=313703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}