Wissahickon Falls to Plymouth Whitemarsh 35-19

Tagged under: District 1, Gameday Hub, News

Zak Wolf | October 31, 2020

“Football is a game of momentum and the momentum kept swinging back and forth between two good teams tonight. We shot ourselves in the foot, four costly turnovers really slowed us down and gave great field position to their team and a great run game that they have. You can’t give a team like that short yardage to put some points on the board.” Coach Bruce Fleming said after his team lost their second game of the season Friday Night. The Trojans needed the win to seal their place in the District 1 5A playoffs, but they fell just short.

Although, the unofficial rankings have the Trojans making the playoffs by the skin of their teeth, ahead of Kennett, based on the fact the Trojans have a record of 3-2, while Kennett sits at 2-2. The Trojans will be happy that they have a possibility to keep their season, going, but will be disappointed that they needed help from other teams to get in, instead of finishing the job themselves.

Like Coach Fleming said, the Trojans “Shot themselves in the foot” on multiple occasions Friday. Most notably, in the fourth quarter when Junior Running back Jeremiah Clark fumbled the ball in his own territory. This came after the Trojans had just made a huge stand on defense, getting two straight sacks to give the offense some momentum. Wiss took over at their own 26, and went with an option look. E.J Schreiner was the quarterback and he handed the ball off to Clark who had it stripped before hitting the ground, a key play in what was a tight game.

The Trojans had success throwing the ball deep all game long, so the decision to run the ball was definitely a questionable call. E.J Schreiner had two explosive touchdowns in the third quarter, one going for 62 yards on the first play of the half and the other for 71 yards. The Trojans will be kicking themselves that they didn’t give Schreiner an opportunity to make a play on that crucial possession.

“It is a positive. We saw something on film to attack it and it’s one of those things where we exploited it and try and do as best we can and E.J took advantage of those opportunites.” Said Coach Fleming

Even in the games that Wissahickon has won this season, they’ve had to come from behind because of poor starts and today it cost them. “I’m still trying to figure that out myself,” Coach Fleming explained, “It’s one of those things that every single game this year we come out flat and then we start to turn it on middle of the first quarter or second quarter, then turn it all the way up in the second half”.

Right from the opening kickoff, PW asserted their dominance when their Full Back Tommy Hannon took the ball into Trojan territory. Hannon ran over a few tacklers in the process, which fired up the PW sideline. The Colonials proceeded to run the ball right down the field and score on an easy 20 yard touchdown run by Aidan O’Brien, his first of two on the day.

PW’s triple option offense gave the Trojans fits all night long, running the ball 60 times for an astounding 359 yards. “It’s tough to stop a triple option offense, especially if you don’t see it every single week,” Fleming said, “In High school football you get 2, maybe 3 days tops of practice to really prepare for it and preparing for a triple option offense is very difficult and the speed that they run it at, because they practice it all the time, you can’t simulate that in practice”

PW extended their lead to two possessions late in the first half, capitalizing off of a fumble by Wissahickon. Tommy Hannon found his way into the end zone for a 4 yard score. The Trojans did respond right before half, when Aidan Defeo found Jackson Intrieri in the back of the end zone for a touchdown with less than a second left on the clock.

Intrieri was the hero last week against William Tennant, impacting the game on both sides of the ball. He caught a touchdown pass along with making two key interceptions to propel the Trojans to victory. Intrieri is a three sport athlete and excels in each one. He’s the Point Guard of the basketball team along with being a star lacrosse player, recently announcing his commitment to Ursinus. The Senior has been a consistent performer for Wiss all year long and one of Aidan Defeo’s most reliable targets.

The Trojans got a spark right out of the half, with the E.J Schreiner touchdown catch, cutting the lead to one, but PW was able to respond right back. The Colonials continued to run the ball with ease, going 70 yards on 9 plays with Aidan O’Brian finishing off the drive with a 16 yard TD. This was the story of the night for the Trojans. Every time they got close, they just couldn’t make the big play that turned the game in their favor.

Schreiner scored again, but in the end, the Trojans just made too many mistakes. Something that they’ve been able to get away with in most of their games this season, but it really came back to bite them in this one.

PW scored two late touchdowns to seal the victory 35-19, but the score did not indicate how close the game actually was. “Tonight is gonna hurt, having this loss.” Coach Fleming said, not knowing whether his team would qualify for the playoffs. “We’ll watch film, Saturday and Sunday, and then we’ll prepare and get ready for whatever our next opponent may be. Whether it’s in the District playoffs or if it’s another contingency game that we set up to play for next week.”

Coach Fleming and the rest of his staff will be relieved that the Trojans will likely be in the playoffs after all, after getting other results to go their way. Wissahickon may get in on a tie breaker as of now, but I don’t think the Trojans will mind, considering all the hard work they’ve put in, during this crazy season.

Wissahickon hasn’t made the playoffs for 12 years, but this year was different. And who do they get to play in the first round? Their backyard rivals, the Upper Dublin Cardinals. These two teams faced off in the opening game, with Upper Dublin edging Wiss 31-27. Although, the Trojans feel they could’ve easily won the game if they didn’t make as many costly errors as they did, especially in the first half. There’s no doubt that the Trojans will be fired up, considering this matchup hasn’t been much of a rivalry, with Upper Dublin winning the previous 9 meetings, including this year.

The Trojans will be looking to break that duct and keep this impressive season going as we head into November. Again, the Trojans still aren’t officially in. The final brackets are set Sunday Afternoon, but it seems like they will be advance on a tiebreaker because they have one more win than Kennett.

What else would you expect from a team that has had a season like the Trojans have had this year.

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