11. Wyoming Valley West 10-0, #1. The Trojans got the top seed in the D-2/4/11 sub-region beating Williamsport 48-7, garnering their third undefeated season in school history. The win also secured the Wyoming Valley 1 title, wrested from last year’s champ Crestwood. Against Williamsport, Valley West had 538 total yards of offense, 230 coming from running back Sean Judge! With a standout quarterback in Aaron Austin completing 63% of his passes for 1478 yards and rushing for another 546 yards, this is a tough offense to defend. Judge has 1144 yards with tight end LJ Wesneski collecting 32 passes for 428 yards and wide receiver Devon Weidman at 32 for 568 yards. First round action against 8th seeded Nazareth (5-5) could get interesting as they have enough offense to make it interesting but not enough defense to stop the Trojans.
12. Pennsbury 7-3, #15. The Falcons lost to Neshaminy 16-14 for their second loss in the last three games but hung on to claim the 15th seed. In a scenario akin to “jumping from the frying pan into the fire”, they travel to Downingtown Saturday to play 2nd seeded Downingtown West, the very team they beat last year in the first round in Fairless Hills. Talk about role reversals. Last year saw the Whippets come in with the 15th seed against Pennsbury with the 2nd seed. Everything switched for this year including the location. As an understatement, that game was memorable, with 118 points scored by way of 1156 total yards of offense, 601 for Pennsbury, 555 for Downingtown. The Falcons rushed for 550 rush yards while Downingtown passed for 405 yards. Charles Snorweah rushed for 440 yards and the Falcons prevailed 63-55. Could be a good one if the Falcons get airborne.
13. Perkiomen Valley 9-1, #10. Perkiomen Valley’s perfect season came to an end in Royersford, losing to Spring Ford 28-14. Quarterback Stephen Sturm had a big game completing 31 of 54 passes (54!) for 292 yards. But the big play ability of the Rams did them in scoring on runs of 29, 35, 46 and 80 yards. Still, the Vikings are a dangerous, well coached team that gets a chance to show their stuff in Delco Friday night against 7th seeded Haverford. Of some concern is their ability to get it together again on the heels of a bitter rival game loss to Spring Ford last week. But it should be an exciting game, showcasing two of the region’s more exciting quarterbacks with Stephen Sturm dueling Haverford’s Jack Donaghy.
14. Central Bucks East 8-2, #5. How about these East High Patriots going 8-2 on the heels of a disastrous 5-5 campaign last year. And that was a high point with the closest thing to a .500 season being a 4-6 outings after their last winning season in 2007. But they’re on a real nice run now and oh so close to undefeated with the 26-21 loss to CR North followed by a 32-26 loss at CR South. The narrow losses to quality Council Rock teams combined with road wins at Pennridge and Quakertown says these guys are for real. In a strange twist of fate, they’ll get an instant rematch with Quakertown, the 12th seeded team they beat last week 24-23.
15. Coatesville 7-3, #19. Losing to the Downingtown schools is one thing but to lose to quirky West Chester East by a point was another. But that’s how it went with consecutive losses to Dtown West, WC East and DTown East proving fatal to their playoff hopes. The three game slide was the first ever in the Matt Ortega era (2009- present), relegating them to the sidelines for the first time since 2009. Also sidelined are quarterback Jordan Young’s 2332 total yards of offense (1698 passing, and 634 rushing), Jadan Hudson’s 742 yards in receptions and the acrobatics and fun of the Young brothers, freshman Aaron and sophomore Avery, Jordan’s younger brothers….with their 261 and 359 yards in receptions. Something is wrong with a playoff format that has this team on the sidelines. At 34ppg they were exciting!
16. Pennridge 7-3, #17. Talk about finishing strong, the Rams won five of their last six with the loss being a narrow 38-32 decision to Pennsbury. Hard imaging the team that battled the Falcons, lost to CB East in overtime and defeated Neshaminy will not be in the playoffs. Somebody do the math again! Maybe Pennridge and Coatesville will work something out. Better yet, maybe the powers that be one day understand that a 38-32 loss to Pennsbury and a overtime loss to Central Bucks East has value that must be realized. Ironically, this was a more productive team than last year’s (7-5) getting 29ppg to 26 the year before. Defensively, this group allowed 19 while last year’s allowed 21 and had the 13th seed. Imagine having last year’s running back Joe Unangst’s 2096 rush yards on this year’s team!
17. Unionville 8-2, #8. The Indians beat Sun Valley 54-6 to win their first Ches Mont American crown since 2012. They overwhelmed Sun in every phase of the game but particularly with their big play potential scoring on plays of 9 (blocked punt rtn), 29, 30 and 34 (pass), 80, 81, 84 (kick rtn) and 89 yards. With the 8th seed comes a home game where they’ll need all the help they can get against 9th seeded North Penn. Both teams are playing well with the Knights winning seven straight and the Indians five. Both also lost to Downingtown East in Downingtown; North Penn losing 28-24 while Unionville lost 49-13.
18. Liberty 7-3, #4.Liberty continued to drop in the rankings with their second loss in the last three games, this time to city rival Freedom, 35-21. Quarterback Doug Erney had a strong game connecting on 20 of 29 tosses for 224 yards. But the Canes defense had no answer for Freedom’s ground game that totaled 248 yards. In fact they haven’t had a defensive answer for anything recently allowing 138 points their last three games. 5th seeded Stroudsburg (8-2) is next.
19. Council Rock North 7-3, #11. Wow, how about C-Rock’s Indians? Except for the 1-pt overtime loss at Norristown, they’d be on a seven game winning streak. But who’s complaining, sitting here with their first Continental crown, a convincing 35-14 win over arch rival CR South and a heck of a seed after starting the year 1-2 with crushing losses to Perkiomen Valley and Pennsbury. Some kind of turnaround! A whole bunch of the credit goes to the unique talents of quarterback Brandon McIlwain, their South Carolina recruit who single-handedly took over a number of games this year, none more important than the last two. Here against Quakertown in a 41-31 upset and CR South last week, he completed 36 of 49 passes, 73%, for 411 yards and two scores, while rushing for 361 yards on 58 carries for a 6.2ypc average, scoring nine touchdowns. That’s 772 yards of offense in two games! All of that, the road win in Quakertown (and Central Bucks East), plus the big outburst against CR South in the second half says they can hang with Upper Darby Friday night where they’ll take on the 6th seeded Royals.
20. Neshaminy 7-3, #13.The Redskins fought their way into the postseason with an impressive, maybe unexpected 16-14 road win at Pennsbury. Realistically, however unimpressively, they’ve been doing it for most of the season, beginning with the win in Montclair, NJ, the gutsy win at CR South and the competitive losses to Downingtown West and North Penn. All these games especially last week’s Pennsbury win right after the North Penn loss, speak to a team of real character and ability. But they’ll need to bring their very best this weekend against the under rated 4th seeded Rams of Spring Ford. Like Pennsbury, they need to get the passing game going since the Rams are way too fast to just hand it off to Will Dogba.
12. Pennsbury 7-3, #15. The Falcons lost to Neshaminy 16-14 for their second loss in the last three games but hung on to claim the 15th seed. In a scenario akin to “jumping from the frying pan into the fire”, they travel to Downingtown Saturday to play 2nd seeded Downingtown West, the very team they beat last year in the first round in Fairless Hills. Talk about role reversals. Last year saw the Whippets come in with the 15th seed against Pennsbury with the 2nd seed. Everything switched for this year including the location. As an understatement, that game was memorable, with 118 points scored by way of 1156 total yards of offense, 601 for Pennsbury, 555 for Downingtown. The Falcons rushed for 550 rush yards while Downingtown passed for 405 yards. Charles Snorweah rushed for 440 yards and the Falcons prevailed 63-55. Could be a good one if the Falcons get airborne.
13. Perkiomen Valley 9-1, #10. Perkiomen Valley’s perfect season came to an end in Royersford, losing to Spring Ford 28-14. Quarterback Stephen Sturm had a big game completing 31 of 54 passes (54!) for 292 yards. But the big play ability of the Rams did them in scoring on runs of 29, 35, 46 and 80 yards. Still, the Vikings are a dangerous, well coached team that gets a chance to show their stuff in Delco Friday night against 7th seeded Haverford. Of some concern is their ability to get it together again on the heels of a bitter rival game loss to Spring Ford last week. But it should be an exciting game, showcasing two of the region’s more exciting quarterbacks with Stephen Sturm dueling Haverford’s Jack Donaghy.
14. Central Bucks East 8-2, #5. How about these East High Patriots going 8-2 on the heels of a disastrous 5-5 campaign last year. And that was a high point with the closest thing to a .500 season being a 4-6 outings after their last winning season in 2007. But they’re on a real nice run now and oh so close to undefeated with the 26-21 loss to CR North followed by a 32-26 loss at CR South. The narrow losses to quality Council Rock teams combined with road wins at Pennridge and Quakertown says these guys are for real. In a strange twist of fate, they’ll get an instant rematch with Quakertown, the 12th seeded team they beat last week 24-23.
15. Coatesville 7-3, #19. Losing to the Downingtown schools is one thing but to lose to quirky West Chester East by a point was another. But that’s how it went with consecutive losses to Dtown West, WC East and DTown East proving fatal to their playoff hopes. The three game slide was the first ever in the Matt Ortega era (2009- present), relegating them to the sidelines for the first time since 2009. Also sidelined are quarterback Jordan Young’s 2332 total yards of offense (1698 passing, and 634 rushing), Jadan Hudson’s 742 yards in receptions and the acrobatics and fun of the Young brothers, freshman Aaron and sophomore Avery, Jordan’s younger brothers….with their 261 and 359 yards in receptions. Something is wrong with a playoff format that has this team on the sidelines. At 34ppg they were exciting!
16. Pennridge 7-3, #17. Talk about finishing strong, the Rams won five of their last six with the loss being a narrow 38-32 decision to Pennsbury. Hard imaging the team that battled the Falcons, lost to CB East in overtime and defeated Neshaminy will not be in the playoffs. Somebody do the math again! Maybe Pennridge and Coatesville will work something out. Better yet, maybe the powers that be one day understand that a 38-32 loss to Pennsbury and a overtime loss to Central Bucks East has value that must be realized. Ironically, this was a more productive team than last year’s (7-5) getting 29ppg to 26 the year before. Defensively, this group allowed 19 while last year’s allowed 21 and had the 13th seed. Imagine having last year’s running back Joe Unangst’s 2096 rush yards on this year’s team!
17. Unionville 8-2, #8. The Indians beat Sun Valley 54-6 to win their first Ches Mont American crown since 2012. They overwhelmed Sun in every phase of the game but particularly with their big play potential scoring on plays of 9 (blocked punt rtn), 29, 30 and 34 (pass), 80, 81, 84 (kick rtn) and 89 yards. With the 8th seed comes a home game where they’ll need all the help they can get against 9th seeded North Penn. Both teams are playing well with the Knights winning seven straight and the Indians five. Both also lost to Downingtown East in Downingtown; North Penn losing 28-24 while Unionville lost 49-13.
18. Liberty 7-3, #4.Liberty continued to drop in the rankings with their second loss in the last three games, this time to city rival Freedom, 35-21. Quarterback Doug Erney had a strong game connecting on 20 of 29 tosses for 224 yards. But the Canes defense had no answer for Freedom’s ground game that totaled 248 yards. In fact they haven’t had a defensive answer for anything recently allowing 138 points their last three games. 5th seeded Stroudsburg (8-2) is next.
19. Council Rock North 7-3, #11. Wow, how about C-Rock’s Indians? Except for the 1-pt overtime loss at Norristown, they’d be on a seven game winning streak. But who’s complaining, sitting here with their first Continental crown, a convincing 35-14 win over arch rival CR South and a heck of a seed after starting the year 1-2 with crushing losses to Perkiomen Valley and Pennsbury. Some kind of turnaround! A whole bunch of the credit goes to the unique talents of quarterback Brandon McIlwain, their South Carolina recruit who single-handedly took over a number of games this year, none more important than the last two. Here against Quakertown in a 41-31 upset and CR South last week, he completed 36 of 49 passes, 73%, for 411 yards and two scores, while rushing for 361 yards on 58 carries for a 6.2ypc average, scoring nine touchdowns. That’s 772 yards of offense in two games! All of that, the road win in Quakertown (and Central Bucks East), plus the big outburst against CR South in the second half says they can hang with Upper Darby Friday night where they’ll take on the 6th seeded Royals.
20. Neshaminy 7-3, #13.The Redskins fought their way into the postseason with an impressive, maybe unexpected 16-14 road win at Pennsbury. Realistically, however unimpressively, they’ve been doing it for most of the season, beginning with the win in Montclair, NJ, the gutsy win at CR South and the competitive losses to Downingtown West and North Penn. All these games especially last week’s Pennsbury win right after the North Penn loss, speak to a team of real character and ability. But they’ll need to bring their very best this weekend against the under rated 4th seeded Rams of Spring Ford. Like Pennsbury, they need to get the passing game going since the Rams are way too fast to just hand it off to Will Dogba.
