RIDLEY TWP. \u2014 There was a lot for Johnny Palladino to process Friday night.<\/p>\n
The Ridley senior linebacker owned up to a mistake in the third quarter of a one-point game against Penncrest. With the Green Raiders set to punt on fourth down, Palladino missed an assignment that allowed Orion Kolleh to shoot through and block the kick, giving the visiting Lions the ball at the Ridley 25.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat blocked punt was definitely on me,\u201d Palladino said.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for him to make things right. Two plays later, Penncrest quarterback Paul Graham mishandled a snap under center, and Palladino fell on the fumble.<\/p>\n
Palladino got a shot to redeem himself, and he delivered when Ridley needed him most.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach always says that pressure\u2019s a privilege,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had our backs up against the wall and \u2026 I kind of was just there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust there\u201d was enough for Ridley to grind out a 10-6 win over a strong Central League opponent.<\/p>\n
The Green Raiders added some cushion in the fourth on a 29-yard field goal by Tim Calamita and held off a tough Penncrest squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a mistake, but it\u2019s all about how you react to it,\u201d Palladino said.<\/p>\n
A week after shutting out Haverford, Ridley\u2019s defense was sensational once again, holding six-win Penncrest to a single score. Ridley has allowed just 61 points all season, 41 in eight weeks since a 20-14 Week 1 loss to Central Bucks East.<\/p>\n
The win pushed the Green Raiders to 8-1 and 8-0 in the Central League. With one game left in the regular season, they have a chance to clinch at least a share of the league title next Friday at home against Garnet Valley.<\/p>\n
Ridley and Springfield, which beat Garnet Valley 28-7 Friday, are tied atop the standings. Ridley hasn\u2019t captured a Central League crown since 2016.<\/p>\n
After Palladino\u2019s recovery, Ridley leaned on its emerging star at running back, Jamar Savoy. He ripped off a 12-yard run to close the third quarter, then followed with gains of seven, eight, 12 and 13 yards on a 12-play drive that bled into the fourth. Calamita\u2019s field goal capped it.<\/p>\n
Ridley\u2019s defense did the rest, forcing incompletions on third and fourth down during Penncrest\u2019s next drive. To seal the deal, quarterback Jackson Solomon kept it on fourth-and-inches, pushing up the middle for five yards. Two kneel-downs later, the Green Raiders walked off with an eighth straight victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a tough game, a tough opponent, but we\u2019re built for this,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cOur defense is the best defense I\u2019ve ever been a part of. Back-to-back weeks shutting down some great offenses, they\u2019re the best. Our offensive line, as I said earlier in the year, we are going to ride them all the way to the Central League title. And we\u2019ve got one more game left, and that\u2019s our goal. It\u2019s been our goal since the start of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
That offensive line \u2014 Andrew Casey, James Coskey, Josh Hamson, Cooper Smith and Yuron Villanueva \u2014 has been the backbone of Ridley\u2019s run. The unit powers a ground game built around Savoy and Solomon. Savoy topped 100 yards again, finishing with 124 and a touchdown on 24 carries after going for 161 yards last week.<\/p>\n
Solomon added 63 yards on 16 attempts. Together, they accounted for every positive rushing yard as Ridley averaged 4.3 yards per carry.<\/p>\n
Solomon showed flashes in the passing game, something he\u2019s worked to improve. He was intercepted on a batted ball at the line for the second straight week, this time on an acrobatic play by Kolleh. But he delivered one of the night\u2019s biggest throws, a 37-yard strike to Tahmir Moody-Ruffin down the middle to set up Ridley\u2019s first touchdown. One play later, Savoy powered into the end zone to make it 7-0 in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a huge play. We saw something on film that we liked,\u201d said Solomon, who finished 5-for-10 for 67 yards. \u201cWe worked all week on it. It was just a post route, and we trust our guys to beat their guys. Moody made a hell of a catch on that play. I trust him just like I trust all of my playmakers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penncrest struggled early, managing 39 yards and two first downs before halftime. But Graham and the offense got in sync after the break. Graham used his legs to make things happen, breaking a 55-yard run down the Ridley sideline that set up his short touchdown run to cut the lead to 7-6 with 4:30 left in the third quarter. The extra point missed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I\u2019ve learned throughout the season is we don\u2019t quit. We have a lot of fight,\u201d said Graham, who ran for a team-high 78 yards on nine carries. \u201cWhen we came out in the second half, it was zero-zero for us. We didn\u2019t quit, but we just couldn\u2019t close it out. I\u2019m super proud of our guys, especially my guys up front, for battling the whole game. We\u2019ve got to carry that into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kolleh and linebacker\/fullback Jeffrey Cropper were all over the field defensively. Cropper added 25 tough yards on 10 carries, while linemen DeJon Fitzgerald and Donovan Trucchio were forces against the run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIDLEY TWP. \u2014 There was a lot for Johnny Palladino to process Friday night. The Ridley senior linebacker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[212,305,183,185,184,186,725,28,726,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-7266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lower-merion","8":"tag-delaware-county","9":"tag-high-school-sports","10":"tag-lower-merion","11":"tag-lower-merion-headlines","12":"tag-lower-merion-news","13":"tag-lower-merion-township","14":"tag-pa-prep-live","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-dtd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266","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=7266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}