GRATERFORD - You could almost say Stephen Sturm grew up on the gridiron.

 

For as long as he can remember, the Perkiomen Valley sophomore quarterback tagged along with his father Ken, a former head coach at Overbrook High who also served as an assistant at the Hill School.

 

"I learned a lot of the basics of football and learned to work hard,' said Sturm. "My dad was an old-school coach.'

 

Suffice it to say Sturm heeded those lessons, which certainly appear to have served him well thus far this fall.

 

Friday night at Thomas J. Keenan Stadium, Sturm continued to impress by tossing two touchdown passes and running for two more scores to help the Vikings remain atop the Pioneer Athletic Conference with a 33-7 victory over Boyertown.

 

The southpaw wound up completing 16 of 25 attempts for 220 yards and also ran for a team-high 51 yards as Perkiomen Valley (7-0 PAC-10, 7-1) reeled off its seventh straight victory to set the stage for next week's showdown at two-time defending league champion Pottsgrove (6-1, 6-2).

 

"I think he's just a level-headed dude,' PV coach Scott Reed said of Sturm. "I can yell and scream at him and get excited, and he just has the same (low-key) reaction. And he kind of takes that posture out on the field.'

 

Sturm has acclimated himself admirably despite having the tall order of succeeding Rasaan Stewart, one of the top talents in area history.

 

"I just tried to focus on football,' Sturm said. "I didn't really think too much about what Rasaan did; I just tried to focus on my game and get better each week.'

 

Sturm got the Vikings on the board with 2:38 left in the first quarter, when he zipped a pass to 6-foot-3, 225-pound Taiyir Wilson, who made a nifty grab before waltzing into the end zone to put PV up 7-0.

 

Boyertown (4-3, 4-4) responded with a 70-play march early in the second quarter engineered by its own first-year starter at QB, junior Lawrence Garnett.

 

Garnett converted third-down throws to Justin Siejk and Dalton Hughes — whose one-handed stab led to a 44-yard completion — to set up his 9-yard scramble on third-and-goal that drew the Bears even at 7-7 with 7:43 remaining in the first half.

 

Before things got too interesting, however, Sturm ensured the Vikings would have plenty of breathing room by intermission.

He sprinted 35 yards on a draw to put PV up to stay at 14-7 less than minutes later, then hooked up with Justin Jaworski for two key completions in a drive that culminated in Sturm's 3-yard run 1:02 before halftime

 

After Perkiomen Valley's Tim Mallon recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, Sturm immediately went to work and found 6-4, 190-pound tight end Bobby Pagel for an 18-yard scoring strike that made it 28-7.

 

"His mental toughness and his toughness in general are probably his best attributes,' Reed said of Sturm. "He stands in the pocket until the very last second. He'll take that hit not a lot of kids are willing to take, and that takes guts to sit in there and hold it until the last second, when you know you're going to get hit but you're waiting for your receiver to clear.

 

"He has reads on every play, and we tell him every week, but sometimes he's reluctant to pull the ball (and run) when his reads tell him to pull it. Tonight he did a good job of pulling it (and running) when he should have.'

 

"I'm trying to make more smart decisions,' said Sturm, who has 16 touchdown passes and only three interceptions. "The main things are making pre-snap reads and determining where I'm going to throw the ball based on what the defense is showing.'

 

Both the Bears and Vikings defenses showed their wares in a second half that saw only five total points — a safety when a swarm of orange led by Ryan O'Donnell engulfed Garnett in the end zone for a safety with 3:20 remaining in the third quarter and a 27-yard field goal by Vikings sophomore kicker Garrett Patla with 3:46 left in the contest.

 

Perkiomen Valley's typically fierce pass rush racked up seven sacks, including two apiece by Mallon and Sean Sedgewick.

 

The Vikings wound up with a 355-164 advantage in total yards, with Jaworski collecting six receptions for 64 yards and O'Donnell and Wilson making three grabs each.

 

"It doesn't seem to me that they sustain drives, but they have a lot of really well-designed plays and they run them at the right times,' Boyertown coach George Parkinson said of the Vikings. "It's a big-play offense. They throw those plays at you like the shovel pass, the read (option), the screens, and they open up some big holes. So far no one's been able to stop that from what I can see on film, and we didn't stop it either tonight. I think that's their strength.'

 

As well as the improving pilot of their potent no-huddle attack.

 

"He's doing a nice job,' Reed said. He's starting to progress pretty well. Hopefully things are slowing down for him, but they're certainly not going to get any slower next week.'

 

Notes

 

PV's Liam Grande boomed a 53-yard punt in averaging 41.7 yards for his three attempts and also returned two punts for a combined 41 yards. ... Darrell Philpot and Foley had the other sacks for PV, while Siejk and Will Scholl had one sack each for the Bears. ... Garnett finished 7-for-15 for 109 yards, Hughes had two catches for 55 yards and Siejk and Devon Bucks each had two receptions. "Our guys played hard and never gave up,' Parkinson said. "That's a big plus.'