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Dramatic Finish In Allentown Saturday Night To Conclude Opening Weekend.

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, pfn

| August 27, 2023

An Overtime Thriller Saturday night closes out Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Opening week.

ALLENTOWN- In a weekend mostly filled with blowout wins by EPC South teams against EPC North foes, Saturday night the spotlight was on J.Birney Crum Stadium as the Northampton Konkrete Kids, in their last season a North Division team came into face state-ranked Allentown Central Catholic Vikings to close the book on opening weekend of high school football.

The throngs of fans who showed up were not disappointed as the K-Kids gave the much more athletic Vikings all they wanted, but in the end an overtime two-point conversion stop by the Vikings defense allowed Central Catholic to survive 17-16.

Northampton came into the game knowing the talk was, yes they have been dominate the past few seasons in the EPC with a 20 game regular season win streak, but could they get that signature win over an EPC South team? The K-Kids with realignment next year will be in the Northampton division with Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty and Nazareth. They took an early 10-0 lead Saturday night after a opening 11 play 75 yard drive culminating in a 1 yard Caden Henritzy score. The much more physical offensive line opened up nice holes for the potent running attack. A 34 yard pass from A.J Slivka to Tristan Pinnock was the key play on the drive that saw the visitors to run on 10 of those plays.

The second Konkrete Kids drive started after the defense held the Vikings on their opening possession and were forced to punt. Staring inside the 20, Northampton methodically drove downfield and a Slivka to Henritzy screen pass, that was perfectly set up, and only a touchdown saving tackle by Nasir McLean at the four prevented a 14-0 lead. From there though the Kids went backwards on a bad snap and had to settle for a 28 yard Aaron Gutkowski field goal an a 10 point advantage.

The Vikings cut the deficit to 10-3 right before halftime as Luke Myers connected on a 30 yard field goal.

Central Catholic seemed to come out of the half looking to establish a power run game as they embarked on a 13 play drive to start the third quarter only to see it end u with zero on the scoreboard as a 4th down pass to the back corner of the end zone came up empty.

But the Vikings defense stepped up and put pressure on Slivka on ensuing drive and forced a Northampton punt. Nathan Schultz tied the game at the 3:13 mark of the third quarter on a eight yard run.

Neither team could generate any more points in regulation and forced OT. Central Catholic would get first crack at scoring in the extra session after Northampton deferred and wanted to play defense first. QB Antonio Fontanez, who is a sophomore, was abe to swing out a pass from the ten to Aiden Sorrentino and scored in the flat. PAT by Myers was good and a 17-10 lead.

Now it was the Konkrete Kids turnt o match it.Facing a 4th and 1 frmn the one, Slivka called his own number and dove in to pull with that single point. The K-Kids refused to go for one and decided to go for the win, a RPO was called but Slivkawas wrapped up and brought down short giving Central Catholic the win.

Central Catholic(1-0) will be at Cottingham Stadium next Friday to face Easton, a 42-0 winners over East Stroudsburg North Saturday. Northampton (0-1) will also be on the road at Pocono Mountain East, who dropped a 41-0 decision to Emmaus.

Follow PA Football News on Twitter @PaFootballNews

 
 
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