Bonner-Prendie sprints past Pope John Paul into the 4A semifinals
Tagged under: District 1, District 12, Gameday Hub, News, pfn, Playoffs
Anthony Franklin | November 24, 2024
Friday night with cold, wet and windy conditions many thought this game would be a struggle offensively. However this game provided plenty of offensive highlights and served as a come out party for Bonner Sr. WR Jeremiah Coleman and Jr. QB Noel Campbell. Pope John Paul entered the contest with an 12-1 record while Bonner came in with a 9-2 record. These teams are no stranger to one another as they battled last season in the first round of playoffs with Bonner escaping on the road with a 21-13 win.
Friday evening the game began with PJP starting the contest on offense. Momentarily Bonners defense held up forcing a punt however due to an roughing the punter penalty PJP retained possession and continued the drive capping it with a 2 yard touchdown run by Dylan Skarback to give PJP an early 7-0 lead with 7:26 left in the first quarter. Bonner would immediately respond with a lengthy methodical drive in which Jr QB Noel Campbell would complete long passes to Sr wideouts Jalil Hall (24 yards) and Jeremiah Coleman (32 yards) getting the Friars into the red zone. From there Sr RB Mick Johnson darted 11 yards into the end zone to tie the score 7-7 with 4:59 left in the first quarter.
Bonners defense would buckle down and stop PJP forcing them to punt. The friars offense on the first play would find success when Noel tossed an 79 yard touchdown pass to Jeremiah to take their first lead of the night 14-7 over PJP with 2:54 left in the opening quarter. Once again the Friars defense stifled PJPs offense and on the first play of the 2nd quarter Mick Johnson took a handoff and raced 66 yards for a touchdown to extend the lead to 21-7 with 14:48 left in the first half. The score would remain 21-7 through 3 quarters of play.
In the 4th quarter Bonner would put the game away when Noel found Jeremiah for his second score of the game this one being an 11 yard reception to extend the lead to 28-7 with 8 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter. Jr. RB Saleem Frink would join the scoring when he raced into the end zone with 4 minutes remaining for the final winning margin of 35-7. Noel would finish the game completing 13 of 21 passes for 255 yards while Jeremiah would haul in 8 receptions for 208 yards and 2 touchdowns. The 208 yards helped him break the school single season receiving record while Noel broke the school single season passing yardage record.
Jeremiah a Delaware county native motioned all over the field finding creases to get open all night. He stated “I saw who was covering me all game and felt like I had to take advantage because I knew they were going try to play man to man a lot majority of the game so I knew I had to win and dominate”. This was the first season for Bonner in the large school Red division and they finished 3-2 with their losses coming to 6A powerhouse programs St. Joes Prep and La Salle. They earned wins over Roman Catholic (playing in the 5A semifinals), O’Hara and Father Judge. When asked how that rigorous schedule helped for their playoff run Jeremiah noted “Just playing those teams were a good challenge for us in the regular season and seeing what we could do against them just made us even more hungry for it. Also shoutout to the coaching staff for preparing us for every possible thing this week”. Despite Bonner going down 7-0 early they stayed composed and regrouped. The mood was never down and Jeremiah emphasized “The mood didn’t change completely we all talked about it on the sideline after and said don’t let no more points up and thats exactly what we did. Defensively only giving up 7 points in a quarter final game is big time”.
Bonner is no stranger to success as they had pretty good teams the last few years. This years group seems to have put it all together. Jeremiah when asked what’s the difference with this team he stated “Everybody is bought in this year, playing together , fighting together, and playing as 1. So going into summer practices everybody showing up from day 1 and working for a spot. I would say that a big difference is that our goal as a team has never changed from last year’s season ending loss”. So far Jeremiah and high academic student sporting a 3.6 GPA has generated numerous interest from college programs but no offers yet but his performance against PJP that will change soon.
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