District 11 Week 2

[RoverNation05]

Big news of the night was Parkland beating Freedom 21-13. Parkland broke a 7-7 tie with a 71 yard screen pass to Nahki Bullock on the first play of the second half, then forced a 3 and out and leaned on Freedom for a 18 play, 10 minute and 40 second touchdown drive to salt the game away. This drops Freedom to 1-2 with losses to Paekland and Emmaus. Because of the playoff structure, the regular season hardly matters, but they’re out of the running to win the EPC, barring total chaos. Parkland bounces back after a tough loss to Nazareth.

Nazareth stays undefeated with a win over Bethlehem Catholic. The Blue Eagles look very good again - having the best quarterback helps, but they’re so improved on defense form where they were a few years ago.

Emmaus also stays undefeated and should remain in their lofty perch in the state rankings with a win over Whitehall. Again, they’re doing it with an excellent defense, though I wonder if they’ll consider a quarterback switch to Josiah Williams if their offense continues to be pedestrian.

Easton takes on Allentown Central Catholic tonight. The Rovers are at risk of an 0-3 start for the first time since 1981.

 

[RoverNation05]

Doing a little more research, this would be Easton’s fourth 0-3 start - SINCE 1894!

1948
1972
1981
2022?

 

[HSFB99]

Rov, I haven’t seen a score from ACC vs Easton. Any update? Thanks.

 

[RoverNation05]

Central raced out to a 21-0 lead and won 27-7. ACC’s running backs combined for for 183 yards, and their QB was 10-11 - Easton opponents have thrown four incompletions in three games (38 attempts).

Easton benched their starting quarterback and went to sophomore Joey Martinez, who threw his first varsity TD in the second quarter to fellow sophomore Jasir Frutchey. A third 10th grader, William Day, led Easton with 72 yards on the ground.

After the game, Jefff Braido said the following:

“I thought we moved the ball well the whole game. The thing that bothered me the most was our lack of discipline,” said coach Jeff Braido. “For whatever reason, we had a lot more mental mistakes tonight.” I can think of some reasons

Easton had four drives stopped in the red zone with no points and committed nine penalties.

ACC is a very solid 4A team. They’re huge on the offensive line - Braheem Battle at left tackle is going to be an FBS prospect - he’s 6’4 310 as a sophomore and can really move. They also have a 6’8 305 right tackle in Fynn McDonald. They pushed Easton around up front and gave Matt Keyes all kinds of time to throw.

As mentioned above, it’s Easton’s first 0-3 start in 41 years. Not making Districts for the first time since 1998 is a real possibility (and that was back when it was only a 4 team tournament and there were only four classes).

 

[HSFB99]

Yikes. Having a lot of 10th graders as key contributors bodes well for the future. But, this year appears to be a waste. How does Braido last??

 

[D1 Transplant]

How does Braido last? Good question. One word, politics. He's well connected. Plus, he never lost to Phillipsburg, that carries a lot of weight. People tend to forget the regular season after the Turkey Day game.