Lehigh Valley Week 8

[RoverNation05]

Weird slate of games this week. Lots of heavy favorites and only one match up of contenders, Easton and Bethlehem Catholic tonight.

Freedom was close early before turning on the jets in a 63-28 win over Emmaus. Freedom scored on all 9 possessions that did not end in kneel downs, making it 13 straight drives with a touchdown for the Patriots. Jared Jenkins set a school record with 426 yards on 25-29 passing. Gabe Caton and Vince Reph both had over 100 yards receiving, and Jalen Stewart set Freedoms career touchdown record with 33 after scoring three times last night. The defense did give up 157 yards to Brandon Camire who now is over 1,300 for the season for Emmaus.

In the other contenders games, Nazareth blew out Whitehall and Parkland stomped Stroudsburg in a cross division game.

Easton travels to BASD Stadium to take on Becahi tonight. It will be a great running back battle between Becahi’s Tavion Banks and Easton’s Nahjee Adams. Adams, a junior, leads 6A in rushing statewide and has been the breakout player in the Lehigh Valley while Banks is approaching his second straight 1,000 yard season and can set the Golden Hawks career touchdown record with two tonight. Banks is also looking to go 4-0 against his former Easton teammates.

 

[Concretechuck]

Freedom looks good. Haven’t seen much of Becahi... any insight? Getting by Imhotep this year?

 

[RoverNation05]

I think

Freedom looks good. Haven’t seen much of Becahi... any insight? Getting by Imhotep this year?

Freedom has a lot of experience in big spots (quarterback, skill spots, offensive/defensive lines) and I think is the most complete team. Jared Jenkins, their quarterback, is a really nice player - a little small for FBS schools (6'1 185) but will make a nice Patriot League/Ivy League QB, and you can win with that in high school. I think they're going to win 6A and would love to see how they stacked up with the Chesmont Teams, the WPIAL rep, or whoever comes out of D3 because I think it would be a good, competitive football game. They'll lose by 4 touchdowns to SJP though, so there isn't a measuring stick as to how they'd actually stack up statewide.

Becahi is HUGE on the offensive line - that's the thing that sticks out first to me. Left tackle is 6'8 315 and has a Penn State offer (though that's mostly on size/projection, he's still a project, not sure if it's a committable offer at this point) and their right tackle is a 6'6 290 sophomore who is the real deal and is going to be a big time recruit (Justin Kanyuk). Also have an FCS type guard on the left side (Jerry Lyons 6'3 295) and their center and right guard are 255 and 270. Their offense is really run heavy out of spread formations - the main ballcarrier is Tavion Banks, a Stony Brook commit who is a four year starter on defense and three year starter on offense. Really good high school running back, and Malik Thomas also gets a bunch of carriers as a little bit of a bigger back. The QB is a sophomore who has shown some flashes, but they really lean on the running game to open things up for him in play action/roll out stuff.

Defensively, Becahi has a lot of two way guys on the defensive front, so they're really big on the defensive line. Lyons is probably a better defensive player, and totally stuffed the Easton run game Saturday from his defensive tackle spot. They've got undersized linebackers, but blitz them a lot in a pretty aggressive scheme. Banks is the best defensive back in the conference.

They lost a tight game to Freedom - they were up 17-14 and went for it on 4th down at about the Freedom 25 near the end of the game and got stuffed, then Freedom drove the length of the field and scored with 1 second left to win. Nazareth killed Becahi - totally shut down their run game (Nazareth also has a bunch of 250+ pound defensive linemen and has the personnel to match up with the Becahi front). Becahi's good wins are blowing away Parkland 44-7 and holding Easton to 130 yards of offense Saturday and forcing four turnovers in a 16-6 win.

I don't think Becahi has enough skill guys this year to beat Imhotep, nor do they have the experience at quarterback. If they can turn it into a really tight, defensive struggle, one score type game, they have a punchers chance. But they can't get into a track meet, nowhere near the firepower.

 

[Concretechuck]

Great insight thank you! I don’t get back home much but try to keep up. Thank you