LIONS SHOT DOWN BY BEARS DEFENSE

BY DAVE KURTZ POTTSTOWN MERCURY

10/1/1983 POTTSTOWN PA

Jim Mich slumped dejectedly in a corner of the St. Pius X coaching room, numbly discussing the afternoon’s grim proceedings. 

Just two weeks ago, the Pius locker room had bubbled with pride and emotion following the monumental, season opening upset of highly touted Coatsville. 

But that moment of Euphoria was a distant memory now for Mich and his disconsolate staff – replaced by a thick, musty air of gloom. 

“it was a terrible loss,” said Mich, after visiting Boyertown had shut down the the punchless Winged Lions 18-0 on a dreary day at Coach Mich Stadium.  “ We start the season out great, and then we go downhill.  That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.  We should be improving. “

While the Winged Lions performance level may have deteriorated since that stirring 7-6 conquest of Coatsville.  Boyertown’s has been steadily moving forward. 

The Bears keyed by a ferocious, uncompromising defense and an opportunistic offense that saw quarterback Jim Kreitz unfurl a pair of touchdown passes Saturday, have now captured two straight since falling to Owen J Roberts in their Ches Mont League opener. 

“We figured that if we won this game, we’d be back in the race.” Said Jim Colihan, Boyertown’s rugged middle linebacker and offensive tackle, who wreaked havoc in the trenches all afternoon.  “This wasn’t easy, though.  We really had to work for it.”

Nothing ever, comes easy when you’re squaring off with Pius, but Boyertown stood up to this test by keeping the injury decimated Lions from establishing a viable ground attack. 

Pius, which played without its outstanding running back/ linebacker Mike Engro (sidelined with badly-sprained ankle), managed only 76 yards rushing against the relentless Bear defense. 

“We had no consistency, no pattern on offense,” Mich said.  “Sure, not having Engro had to hurt.  But in this game, you have to be able to play without people sometimes. 

“I knew coming in that we’d probably have to throw the ball more than usual and we did.  It wasn’t a very good situation.”

The impotent Winged Lions, who had scored just seven points in each of their previous two outings, found themselves in a heap of trouble when Boyertown finally broke through with just 1:32 left in the second period. 

Keith Endy’s two yard touchdown burst off right tackle capped a nine-play, 52 yard march that was kept alive by a controversial pass interference call, helping shove Pius into the unenviable position of playing catchup with its ineffective, one dimensional attack. 

Despite having the deck stacked against them at that point, the Winged Lions almost pulled it off, finding some consistency and continuity, behind strong armed quarterback Craig Marcheskie. 

Marcheskie went to work immediately after Endy’s touchdown, executing the Lion’s two minute offense to blackboard perfection.  He struck through the airways for 45 yards, exploiting the soft underbelly of Boyertown’s prevent defense to take the Lion’s all the way down to the Bear 22.  But he ran out of time. 

The Lions didn’t lose their momentum during intermission.  Marcheskie, picking up where he left off at the end of the half, delivered a 34 yard strike to John Yergey on Pius first play from scrimmage in the second half.  The play opened up an impressive drive that reached the Boyertown six yard line when Marcheskie and Tom Pufnock collaborated on a 16 yard counter reverse and lateral play.

But with the Lions snarling on the doorstep, the bears quieted the disturbance with a tide turning goal line stand, turning away three straight running plays and then pressuring Marcheskie into a poor option pitch on fourth and goal at the two. 

“I think that broke them,” said Colihan, who combined with defensive end Tom Scott to spearhead the spirited stand. 

“We should have stuffed it in, no question about it,” Mich growled.

Pius did manage to force the Bears into a punting situation deep in their own territory, but a booming 49 yarder by Kreitz rescued Boyertown from its precarious field position. 

Kreitz followed up that big play with another pivotal one, picking off a Marcheskie ‘Hail Mary’ and bringing it back 18 yards to the Boyertown 49.  After the teams exchanged possessions, the Bears struck for an insurance score. 

Harrison Harper, who was held under 100 yards rushing for the first time this season, started the thrust with a six yard burst, and ended it by taking a perfectly executed screen left 29 yards for the touchdown. 

“They caught us in a blitz,” Mich admitted.  “It was a good call.  They threw the ball back to the weak side.  Our strong safety was there, but he got blocked. “

The pumped up Bears kept coming, sealing the Lions doom by scoring on their next possession. Marc Alderfer hauled in a 25 yard scoring strike from Kreitz to cap an impressive eight play, 66 yard drive that featured the punishing running of Robert Kulp and Harper, who finished the afternoon with 92 yards on 24 carries. 

The rest was left in the capable hands of the Boyertown defense, who were more than up to the task of putting this one away. 

“We wanted the shutout, and we weren’t about to be denied it,” said Joe Pulli, the Bears outstanding two way lineman.  I think we had more intensity than they did, and it showed.”

That intensity was apparent when Boyertown turned on its pass rush in the fourth quarter.  The pressure resulted in three sacks and forced Marcheskie into a horrid 2 for 7 passing performance over the final 12 minutes. 

“I can’t say enough about our defense,” grim said.  “They did a tremendous job.  We got pressure inside from our tackles (Rich Rothenberger, Mike Farrow) and our ends(Tom Scott, Chris King) did the job after getting burned a couple of times early in the game.  It was just an outstanding team effort by our defense.”

The Bears played without two of its offensive starters – fullback Tony Lambert and center Jeff Fulmer – but suffered no apparent slippage in performance with Jim Steber at center and Endy and Kulp at fullback. 

“You have to give the kids credit,” Grim said.  “We really cut down on our mistakes this week (no turnovers).  “We don’t have blazing speed, but the kids take a lot of pride in execution.  And they executed very well today.”

EXTRA POINTS – Engro was in uniform Saturday, but failed to see any action despite getting the green light from the team physician.  “We watched him before the game,  and we didn’t think he looked ready.  You play him today, and you risk losing him for the next five weeks.  I would have have loved to have had him in there today, but it wasn’t worth the risk.”. . . Both Pius and Boyertown will be in West Chester next Saturday afternoon for respective confrontations with Ches Mont unbeaten East and Henderson . . . Joe Fisher led Pius in rushing Saturday with 38 yards on 13 carries.  The Winged Lions won the statistical war, 229-216 in total yards and 14-12 in first downs.  But a lot of those yards were accumulated during garbage time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOYERTOWN                                     0              6              6              6              --             18

ST PIUS X                                             0              0              0              0              --             0

 

SCORING             BOY        ENDY 2 YARD RUN (RUN FAILED)

                                BOY        HARPER 30 YARD PASS FROM KREITZ (RUN FAILED)

                                BOY        ALDERFER 25 YARD PASS FROM KREITZ (KICK FAILED)

 

RUSHING: BOYERTOWN: HARPER  24-92, KULP 5-24, MUSSELMAN 3-21, ENDY 7-14, KREITZ 1-5

                   ST PIUS X: FISHER 13-38, PUFROCK 3-38, STIGURA 1-1, SKARBEK 1-(-1), MARCHESKIE 9-(-3)

 

RECEIVING: BOYERTOWN: ALDERFER 2-32, HARPER 1-29

                     ST. PIUS X: MCCLOY 4-47, YERGEY 1-34, HUGHES 4-41, PUFROCK 3-10, LEON 1-8, CHILLOT 1-4

 

PASSING: BOYERTOWN: KREITZ 3-5-80 YARDS- 3 TOUCHDOWNS

                  ST. PIUS: MARCHESKIE 13-30-153-1 INTERCEPTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STATISTICS                                                          BOY                                        SPX

FIRST DOWNS                                                    12                                           14

YARDS RUSHING                                              138                                         78

YARDS PASSING                                               60                                           123

PASSING                                                              3-5-0                                      13-30-1

FUMBLES LOST                                                  1-0                                          3-1

PEANLTIES YARDS                                            4-50                                       5-70

PUNTS AVERAGE                                             6-34.0                                    6-33.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TROJANS SHUT DOWN BY BEARS

BY DON SEELEY POTTSTOWN MERCURY

BOYERTOWN PA 10/29/1982

Sometimes the best way to defense speed is with speed itself. 

Even if it is a step or two slower. 

Boyertown, known for its size and not its fleetness of foot, realigned its defense Friday night especially for Scott Glenn, Jeff Satterwhite and the rest of Pottstown’s explosive force, and ended up running away with a surprising 16-8 Ches Mont League victory.

Glenn returned the opening kickoff 86 yards to put Boyertown in arrears right from the start, was held to a harmless 79 yards on 23 carries just six days after he personally humiliated Pottsgrove with a Ches Mont League record 343 yards and four touchdowns.  Satterwhite could only muster 30 yards on 10 tries and, together with two pass completions by backup quarterback Glenn Reinert, the Trojans managed but a mere 135 yards of offense. 

The neutralizer, according to Boyertown head coach Don Grim, was rearranging the personnel. 

“We wanted to put our fastest people in places where we felt we had to stop them,” he offered after the win improved Boyertown to 4-3 in the Ches Mont and 5-3 overall.

Senior Keith Endy was one of those Bears pushed into a new slot, and he too felt the changes were as significant as any strategy outlined for the dashing Trojan backfield.    

“Before (Jim) Colihan and I were inside linebackers and (Harrison) Harper was what we call our monster back,” Endy noted, “But we were always getting burned on the weak side stuff.”

“Tonight Harper and I moved out to the corners and Colihan and (Wilbur) Stoudt moved inside.  We didn’t really have a weak side then, and Harper and I were told to force everything we could inside.” 

It worked quite well.  Glenn, who didn’t dart for any kind of great distances until a 33 yard streak with just over three minutes remaining, nor Satterwhite could get around the Bears.  Defensive ends Chris King and Tom Scott played key roles in that squeeze, as did Jim Steber and Brian Musselman, who accompanied Endy and Harper in the secondary. 

“We felt we could hold them inside with Colihan and Stoudt in there,”  Grim said.  “It turns out we did, too, because our tackles, (Mike) Farrow and (George) Burns, really stacked up their people in the middle. 

“We just got an overall good team effort.  We had just one little breakdown on that kickoff, but after that first 15 seconds our defense played well.”  

Pottstown head coach Dan Weller noticed, too.

“They didn’t surprise us with anything,” he said.  “They just controlled the line of scrimmage both ways.  I can’t tell too much without looking at the films, but our problem was a combination of them playing extremely well and us not playing well.”

The Trojans, who fell to 4-3 (5-3 overall) and perhaps out of the Ches Mont title race for good, looked as though they were well on their way to a second straight romp

Glenn took the opening kickoff on one bounce, side-stepped a pair of Bears and was off down the left sideline for 86 yards and a touchdown.  Quarterback Bill Kerr sneaked in for the two point conversion and, with just 15 seconds elapsed in the contest, the Trojans owned an 8-0 lead. 

On the ensuing kickoff, Boyertown stared at Glenn’s short but lofty boot too long, and satterwhite picked it up at the Bears 28 yard line.  A holding penalty, though, thwarted Pottstown’s bid to increase its advantage.  

Thereafter it was Boyertown’s game. 

Quarterback Jim Kreitz fired a 37 yard bomb to Endy, Troy Lambert piled up 12 yards on a pivitoal third down and five situation and Harper, who finished with 103 yards for his eighth straight 100 yard or better outing, carried it over the final three yards.  The senior tailback added the two point conversion run and with 7:50 left in the first half it was an 8-8 tie. 

“We wanted to control the football and keep it away from them as much as possible,” Grim said.  “I was satisfied with that, but our defense really came through on top of it.”

“Our major concern was their big play offense,” added Endy, “They can break it open on one play.”

“But our offense played well too.  Our lineman were excellent and everybody else did their job.” 

Pottstown di put together a 55 yard march that chewed up nearly seven minutes of clock at the end of the first half, but the Trojans came up empty when Glenn’s 32 yard field goal attempt was wide to the left. 

The Trojans had possession for only eight plays in the third quarter, which underlined Grim’s glee with his offense.  But it was defense, namely Colihan’s recovery of a Bryan Lacey fumble on Pottstown’s nine, that sent the Bears in front for good. 

On third and three, lacey failed to come up with Glenn’s handoff on a reverse and Colihan’s recovery of a bryan Lacey fumble on Pottstown’s nine that sent the Bears in front for good. 

On third and three, Lacey failed to come up with with Glenn’s handoff on a reverse and Colihan fell on the bobble with 6:01 remaining in the game, Harper went off the left side twice to move it down to the three, then 1:34 later Kreitz sneaked in from there to provide the difference. 

“We hadn’t been making many mistakes,” Weller said.  “But we sure did make a lot of mental and a lot of physical mistakes in this one.”

Pottstown did have one last chance to draw even.  Reinert came off the bench and directed the Trojans from their own 41 to Boyertown’s 10, but Glenn was held to one yard on first down, then Alderfer broke up a pass, Bruns sacked Reinert for a three yard loss and Steber stopped Chris Bradshaw’s reception several yards short of a first down at the seven. 

“There’s always been a rivalry between Boyertown and Pottstown, so this is a big win,” Grim said.  “Plus this is the first time we’ve come from behind to win a game this year and that’s a big thing, too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POTTSTOWN                                      8              0              0              0              --             8             

BOYERTOWN                                     0              8              0              8              --             16

 

SCORING             POT        GLENN 88 YARD KICKOFF RETURN (KERR RUN)

                                BOY        HARPER 3 YARD RUN (HARPER RUN)

                                BOY        KREITZ 3 YARD RUN (HARPER RUN)

 

RUSHING: POTTSTOWN: GLENN 33-79, SATTERWHITE 10-30, LACEY 3-6, KERR 1-3, REINERT 3-2

                   BOYERTOWN: HARPER 34-108, LAMBERT 10-71, KREITZ 6-(-7)

 

RECEIVING: POTTSTOWN: LACEY 1-10, BRADSHAW 1-6

                     BOYERTOWN: ENDY 2-48, ALDERFER 1-33

 

PASSING: POTTSTOWN: REINERT 2-3-16 YARDS, KERR 0-3

                  BOYERTOWN: KREITZ 3-7-70, ALDERFER 1-3-8, ENDY 0-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STATISTICS                                          POTTS                                   BOY

FIRST DOWNS                                    6                                              13

YARDS RUSHING                              119                                         167

YARDS PASSING                                               16                                           85

TOTAL YARDS                                     135                                         252

PASSES C-A-I                                      3-6-0                                      4-11-0

FUMBLES LOST                                  4-2                                          1-0

PENALTIES YARDS                            5-51                                       4-25

PUNTS AVG                                        4-43.2                                    3-40.0