I'll pick up the West season in the playoffs, after an up and down year that started with some sloppy games and a lot of injuries, but ended on a high note with the big rivalry win and upset over CB East. Having to go back on the road to East for round 1 wasn't ideal, but West jumped out to a 28-0 lead at the half and wasn't really threatened the rest of the way. They got good news right after the game ended, and would get a bonus home game against North Penn who had knocked off Pennsbury.
Not easy to beat Dick Beck twice in a year, but the shootout that followed was worth the price of admission. NP led 32-28 at the half, but West would limit them to only 3 in the second half to pull away to a 44-35 win, with over 500 yards of offense, 330 of them on the ground by Eli Boehm. At one point West scored on two consecutive 80 yard plays after touchbacks, interrupted only by a 65 yard TD run for North Penn for their own one-play drive. Game was iced by an acrobatic interception by McFadden.
Perk Valley was the opposite, a nail biting 14-13 win in the snow with West limiting PV to 129 yards of offense. PV scored only on a couple of short fields after an interception and then a shanked punt. It was a fantastic defensive effort, but unfortunately West lost two way all-league player McFadden to a broken collarbone near the end of the game. PV had a very good defense, and some excellent big guys up front. Definitely one of the best wins in the Rowan tenure.
West would have to play Garnet Valley without 5 defensive starters and their most explosive offensive weapon. The game was closer than the final score indicated, with a few big turning points... In the second quarter West had first and goal at the 3, trailing 7-0, and jumped offside on the first play. What followed was a comedy of penalties that pushed West back to near the 30 by 4th down. GV got the stop and drove down the field, helped by a bad 15 yard late hit penalty, for a 14-0 lead at halftime. At the time West had the momentum, forcing back to back punts in the second quarter. Next big blow was Clemens breaking his ankle during that West drive, losing another two way starter, and would have to play the second half down 6 starters on D. West came out in the 3rd quarter forcing a punt and then put a scoring drive together featuring a highlight reel catch and run by Boehm who threw two GV players to the ground with consecutive stiff arms. 14-7 - another GV punt and it looked like West was taking control of the game. They ran a play action to Boehm, who was wide open, uncovered down the middle of the field... Cooper was hit just as he threw and the ball didn't travel very far, intercepted. GV scored on the next play from around 25 yards out. That was it... West seemed to lose their fight after that. Season over.
SOL NATIONAL: The year of the RB in the SOL National / Return of Coach Snyder
PENNSBURY (Way up) 7-0, 9-2: Probably the best case scenario to have their legendary coach back at the same time you have a generational FB to run the ball. A couple teams had good chances to knock them off, with West fumbling the ball away for a scoop and score on what looked like a sure West TD for a 14 point swing in the final seconds of the first half, and then Pennridge looking like they might pull it off… but good teams make plays to win close games. Big questions next year are how do you replace the production of Galamama Mulbah (2000 yards) and does Coach Snyder go back to pure wing-t or does he retain some of the option offense he integrated into it this year? I’d assume they add more bodies from the school population and the weight program continues to pay dividends. I’m going to make the very safe prediction that they stay close to the top of the league for years to come.
CB WEST (Slightly down) 5-2, 9-5: West had their chances to make a run at the conference, but ultimately didn’t play consistent enough football to pull it off. At some point early in the season, (week 3 or 4 maybe?) Coach Rowan elevated Coach Goldrick back to OC (he was last the OC in 2019, Sanderson took over in 2020 and 2021 but retired) and the offense seemed to bounce back and forth much of the year between traditional wing-t and a lot of I-formation with Boehm at tailback. There seemed to be teams that just couldn’t stop the wing-t and then against other teams West spent the majority of the game in I-formation running straight downhill. They didn’t seem to have an obvious replacement at FB for Mancini, who had followed Fallon. Defense put up some fantastic efforts, with a very young and very undersized group across the board. DTs were both around 175 pounds, and only one of the three LBs weighed that much. They continued to play very physical football despite that, a credit to both the players and Coach Rowan instilling that style of play. Credit also to Coach Gehringer for the work he does with the o-line. They return in the neighborhood of 16-17 starters including Ganz Cooper for his 4th year at QB, Jack Williams at DE/TE, the big LT Hayden Mulligan, Cooper Taylor a hard hitting SS, Conor McFadden (the fastest player in the league) AJ Gerace at DT, Matt Cleland at OLB / punter and Ryan Clemens, a budding star at CB and RB(and kicker). Junior safety Jack Fleisher is hopefully also back from an ACL tear suffered against Quakertown. Returning underclassmen got to play in 4 playoff games this year, and those who were on the field in 2021 as sophomores have now played in 6. If they can stay healthy, and find a way to replace the 1650 yards from Boehm and probably 700 from FB Cherubini…they should be near the top of the league once again.
CB EAST (Up) 5-2, 8-3: East was having a fantastic run of a regular season until their old nemesis ruined the party. Ethan Shine (1900+ yards rushing), Liam Powers (OL, Penn State) and Pat Keller at QB led a strong senior class to their best regular season in memory. They certainly out-performed what I expected, they were bigger and better up front than they’ve been recently. What jumps out however is 5 straight losses now to West, and no playoff wins in at least the past decade? I’m sure the East faithful would like more to show for it than just leading the league in “all-league” players. Will they spread it out next year like they did in the past? Or stay with the run-heavy scheme they’ve used while they had Shine in the backfield and a big O-line? Joe Collins is a very good two way lineman who will lead the returning starters. Shine and Keller graduating leave two big holes to fill.
NORTH PENN (Down) 4-3, 6-6: One of the best offenses in the SOL, with 4 year starter Zeltt, Yazeed Haynes transferring in from N-G (Georgia) and an army of RBs; they never could pull together the defense for long enough stretches to challenge this year. After knocking off Pennsbury in round 1, they looked like they might make some noise in District 1 but ultimately couldn’t stop West and Boehm. At some point does Beck look to bring in a DC to try to straighten out their defensive woes? Can they replace the best QB in the league? They’ll reload like they usually do but clearly something has to change defensively as it has been their achilles heel for a long time now.
CB SOUTH (Slightly Up) 4-3, 6-5: South always seems to have a good team but much like East, can’t break through and win the big ones, especially in the playoffs, where they haven’t had a win during the current HC’s tenure. I really thought they’d knock off Souderton but offensively just couldn’t sustain anything in an uninspired 10-0 first round loss. They always seem to play West tougher than East does, and pulled off a big win against them at home this year. They’ll need to replace a solid senior QB in Szarko and slot receiver Donnelly, but they are always very good offensively and in the last couple years seem to be playing much better defense. They return a fair number of players, including big sophomore tackle Goetter and LB Moskowitz. I expect them to be top 3 in the league in 2023.
NESHAMINY (Slightly Up) 2-5, 4-6: This one is a head scratcher. They had a very very talented d-line, great size, some quality skill… but can’t seem to make anything out of what appears to be a very good roster. The opening sequence of the game against West seemed to sum up their year: Jet sweep right, gain of 8. Jet sweep left, no gain. Jet sweep right, loss of 6. Punt. They are losing studs like Buckys DE (Army), Dunkley DE (Duquesne), Zach TE and their back Barnett (1200 rushing yards). Time to change things up? New scheme, new blood on coaching staff?
PENNRIDGE (Way Down) 1-6, 2-8: The turning point of their season probably happened in the off-season when Coach Rowan decided to stay at West and subsequently Phil Picciotti transferred to IMG. The coaching transition ended up being fairly smooth with the existing staff mainly staying in place, and expectations were still very high, with a big, talented senior class even without Picciotti. There is just no reason that this roster should be a 2-8 team. A D1 back in Fisher (Army), lots of big bodies on both sides of the ball, physical backers, etc… They now go into next year having to replace a ton of seniors. They did lose a couple of close ones to East and Pennsbury, which perhaps hinted at their talent but ultimately only beat Bensalem and Abington. Hard to be overly optimistic about the coming season.
ABINGTON (Down) 0-7, 2-8: They will be replacing Head Coach Kevin Conlin in the off-season, who guided them to some memorable recent seasons. 2019 was a nice year and 2020 would have been another good team if they weren’t limited by Covid. This year’s team seemed talented at times, but also unorganized and undisciplined, from the time they walked on the field for warmups. Only managed to beat bad CR North and Truman teams. I thought Conlin was a very good coach but maybe it’s just time for a change there. They are in a tough geographic area to lose players to privates, but still seemed to have a solid roster. They have a dynamic freshman QB to build around, if he decides to stay for the next three years.
Not easy to beat Dick Beck twice in a year, but the shootout that followed was worth the price of admission. NP led 32-28 at the half, but West would limit them to only 3 in the second half to pull away to a 44-35 win, with over 500 yards of offense, 330 of them on the ground by Eli Boehm. At one point West scored on two consecutive 80 yard plays after touchbacks, interrupted only by a 65 yard TD run for North Penn for their own one-play drive. Game was iced by an acrobatic interception by McFadden.
Perk Valley was the opposite, a nail biting 14-13 win in the snow with West limiting PV to 129 yards of offense. PV scored only on a couple of short fields after an interception and then a shanked punt. It was a fantastic defensive effort, but unfortunately West lost two way all-league player McFadden to a broken collarbone near the end of the game. PV had a very good defense, and some excellent big guys up front. Definitely one of the best wins in the Rowan tenure.
West would have to play Garnet Valley without 5 defensive starters and their most explosive offensive weapon. The game was closer than the final score indicated, with a few big turning points... In the second quarter West had first and goal at the 3, trailing 7-0, and jumped offside on the first play. What followed was a comedy of penalties that pushed West back to near the 30 by 4th down. GV got the stop and drove down the field, helped by a bad 15 yard late hit penalty, for a 14-0 lead at halftime. At the time West had the momentum, forcing back to back punts in the second quarter. Next big blow was Clemens breaking his ankle during that West drive, losing another two way starter, and would have to play the second half down 6 starters on D. West came out in the 3rd quarter forcing a punt and then put a scoring drive together featuring a highlight reel catch and run by Boehm who threw two GV players to the ground with consecutive stiff arms. 14-7 - another GV punt and it looked like West was taking control of the game. They ran a play action to Boehm, who was wide open, uncovered down the middle of the field... Cooper was hit just as he threw and the ball didn't travel very far, intercepted. GV scored on the next play from around 25 yards out. That was it... West seemed to lose their fight after that. Season over.
SOL NATIONAL: The year of the RB in the SOL National / Return of Coach Snyder
PENNSBURY (Way up) 7-0, 9-2: Probably the best case scenario to have their legendary coach back at the same time you have a generational FB to run the ball. A couple teams had good chances to knock them off, with West fumbling the ball away for a scoop and score on what looked like a sure West TD for a 14 point swing in the final seconds of the first half, and then Pennridge looking like they might pull it off… but good teams make plays to win close games. Big questions next year are how do you replace the production of Galamama Mulbah (2000 yards) and does Coach Snyder go back to pure wing-t or does he retain some of the option offense he integrated into it this year? I’d assume they add more bodies from the school population and the weight program continues to pay dividends. I’m going to make the very safe prediction that they stay close to the top of the league for years to come.
CB WEST (Slightly down) 5-2, 9-5: West had their chances to make a run at the conference, but ultimately didn’t play consistent enough football to pull it off. At some point early in the season, (week 3 or 4 maybe?) Coach Rowan elevated Coach Goldrick back to OC (he was last the OC in 2019, Sanderson took over in 2020 and 2021 but retired) and the offense seemed to bounce back and forth much of the year between traditional wing-t and a lot of I-formation with Boehm at tailback. There seemed to be teams that just couldn’t stop the wing-t and then against other teams West spent the majority of the game in I-formation running straight downhill. They didn’t seem to have an obvious replacement at FB for Mancini, who had followed Fallon. Defense put up some fantastic efforts, with a very young and very undersized group across the board. DTs were both around 175 pounds, and only one of the three LBs weighed that much. They continued to play very physical football despite that, a credit to both the players and Coach Rowan instilling that style of play. Credit also to Coach Gehringer for the work he does with the o-line. They return in the neighborhood of 16-17 starters including Ganz Cooper for his 4th year at QB, Jack Williams at DE/TE, the big LT Hayden Mulligan, Cooper Taylor a hard hitting SS, Conor McFadden (the fastest player in the league) AJ Gerace at DT, Matt Cleland at OLB / punter and Ryan Clemens, a budding star at CB and RB(and kicker). Junior safety Jack Fleisher is hopefully also back from an ACL tear suffered against Quakertown. Returning underclassmen got to play in 4 playoff games this year, and those who were on the field in 2021 as sophomores have now played in 6. If they can stay healthy, and find a way to replace the 1650 yards from Boehm and probably 700 from FB Cherubini…they should be near the top of the league once again.
CB EAST (Up) 5-2, 8-3: East was having a fantastic run of a regular season until their old nemesis ruined the party. Ethan Shine (1900+ yards rushing), Liam Powers (OL, Penn State) and Pat Keller at QB led a strong senior class to their best regular season in memory. They certainly out-performed what I expected, they were bigger and better up front than they’ve been recently. What jumps out however is 5 straight losses now to West, and no playoff wins in at least the past decade? I’m sure the East faithful would like more to show for it than just leading the league in “all-league” players. Will they spread it out next year like they did in the past? Or stay with the run-heavy scheme they’ve used while they had Shine in the backfield and a big O-line? Joe Collins is a very good two way lineman who will lead the returning starters. Shine and Keller graduating leave two big holes to fill.
NORTH PENN (Down) 4-3, 6-6: One of the best offenses in the SOL, with 4 year starter Zeltt, Yazeed Haynes transferring in from N-G (Georgia) and an army of RBs; they never could pull together the defense for long enough stretches to challenge this year. After knocking off Pennsbury in round 1, they looked like they might make some noise in District 1 but ultimately couldn’t stop West and Boehm. At some point does Beck look to bring in a DC to try to straighten out their defensive woes? Can they replace the best QB in the league? They’ll reload like they usually do but clearly something has to change defensively as it has been their achilles heel for a long time now.
CB SOUTH (Slightly Up) 4-3, 6-5: South always seems to have a good team but much like East, can’t break through and win the big ones, especially in the playoffs, where they haven’t had a win during the current HC’s tenure. I really thought they’d knock off Souderton but offensively just couldn’t sustain anything in an uninspired 10-0 first round loss. They always seem to play West tougher than East does, and pulled off a big win against them at home this year. They’ll need to replace a solid senior QB in Szarko and slot receiver Donnelly, but they are always very good offensively and in the last couple years seem to be playing much better defense. They return a fair number of players, including big sophomore tackle Goetter and LB Moskowitz. I expect them to be top 3 in the league in 2023.
NESHAMINY (Slightly Up) 2-5, 4-6: This one is a head scratcher. They had a very very talented d-line, great size, some quality skill… but can’t seem to make anything out of what appears to be a very good roster. The opening sequence of the game against West seemed to sum up their year: Jet sweep right, gain of 8. Jet sweep left, no gain. Jet sweep right, loss of 6. Punt. They are losing studs like Buckys DE (Army), Dunkley DE (Duquesne), Zach TE and their back Barnett (1200 rushing yards). Time to change things up? New scheme, new blood on coaching staff?
PENNRIDGE (Way Down) 1-6, 2-8: The turning point of their season probably happened in the off-season when Coach Rowan decided to stay at West and subsequently Phil Picciotti transferred to IMG. The coaching transition ended up being fairly smooth with the existing staff mainly staying in place, and expectations were still very high, with a big, talented senior class even without Picciotti. There is just no reason that this roster should be a 2-8 team. A D1 back in Fisher (Army), lots of big bodies on both sides of the ball, physical backers, etc… They now go into next year having to replace a ton of seniors. They did lose a couple of close ones to East and Pennsbury, which perhaps hinted at their talent but ultimately only beat Bensalem and Abington. Hard to be overly optimistic about the coming season.
ABINGTON (Down) 0-7, 2-8: They will be replacing Head Coach Kevin Conlin in the off-season, who guided them to some memorable recent seasons. 2019 was a nice year and 2020 would have been another good team if they weren’t limited by Covid. This year’s team seemed talented at times, but also unorganized and undisciplined, from the time they walked on the field for warmups. Only managed to beat bad CR North and Truman teams. I thought Conlin was a very good coach but maybe it’s just time for a change there. They are in a tough geographic area to lose players to privates, but still seemed to have a solid roster. They have a dynamic freshman QB to build around, if he decides to stay for the next three years.
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