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Easton escapes with Win over Freedom

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, News, pfn

| October 18, 2025

Easton-

On senior night at Cottingham stadium, The Red Rovers do just enough and get lucky enough, to escape with the victory.

The evening’s game began with The Rovers receiving the opening kick.  And the night’s defensive battle was off.  After getting an initial first down, the visiting Pats forced an Easton punt.  The Rover defense returned the favor forcing a 3 and out for the Freedom offense.  That wasn’t all the bad news for Freedom on their opening drive, as on their first offensive play, running back Lashawn Johnson went down with an apparent ankle injury and was lost for the remainder of the game.  On the ensuing Easton possession, the Rovers methodically pounded the ball down the field with their run game on the backs of Chris Martinez and Cole Ordway.  Finally, after a lengthy and time consuming drive, the Rovers broke through as Martinez broke the plane of the end-zone to put Easton up 7-0 with 4:15 remaining in the 1st quarter.

The Rover defense went right back to work forcing another punt by Freedom and giving the ball back to the Easton offense who was looking to extend their lead. The drive started off with the Freedom defense coming up big and dropping Ordway for a 15 yard sack, putting the Rover offense way behind the sticks.  Ordway kept his composure however and got the Rover offense out of trouble. On the next play he gained back most of the yardage lost and then on the ensuing play found Andrew Biddle to get the rovers in to a makeable 4th down situation, and make it they did, on the back of their running back Martinez who found a hole up the middle on 4th down and gained just enough to convert.  The drive however came to a sudden end as an Ordway pass slipped right through the hands of a Rover receiver and in to the waiting arms of Freedom’s Davyan Moore.

Freedom looked to be in business starting off with good field position for their next offensive drive, but the Rover defense once again stood tall and forced a 3 and out for the Freedom offense.  The Rover offense fared only slightly better on their next possession as they picked up 2 first downs before being forced to punt the ball away.  The Freedom offense then picked up 2 of their own first downs before punting the ball away once again.  This possession for the Rovers ended up being abruptly cut short as after Ordway completed a pass to Anthony Biddle, but the ball was then punched out and recovered by the Freedom defense deep in Red Rover territory.  It only took the Pat’s Michael Stofanak 2 plays to find Davyan Moore on a crossing route for a 12 yard score to even the game at 7 with 1:07 left in the first half.

Ordway and the Rover offense took the field and proceeded to execute their 2 minute drill to perfection, finding receivers for quick chunks of yards and getting out of bounds driving the length of the field.  The drive finally being capped off with an Ordway 21 yard scamper through the heart of the Freedom defense to put Easton up 14-7 with just 29 seconds remaining in the first half.

The 3 quarter of the matchup was a scoreless defensive battle accounting for 4 cumulative punts between Freedom and Easton.  Now in to the 4th quarter, Freedom’s offense finally broke through again, this time on the back of Abraham Pla who was unstoppable on this drive for the Pats, racking up 3 10+ yard runs and capping off the drive with a 4 yard touchdown run to tie the game at 14 with 9:34 left in the 4th quarter.

The ensuing drive for Easton chewed up a significant portion of the remaining time in the 4th quarter. Ordway kept the ball on the ground, running it himself the majority of the drive.  The Pats’ defense finally stopped the Rover offense with a sack on Ordway on 3rd down and forced Easton to bring on kicker Noah Borluca to attempt a 36 yard field goal…which he drilled through the uprights with a line drive kick to give the Rovers a 3 point lead, 17-14, with 3:46 remaining in the game.

Looking to tie, or even outright win the game, the Freedom offense took the field and sure enough, mounted their own drive down the field thanks in large part to a long completion down the sideline thanks to a pump fake from Sotfanak and a double move by Jaxson Pierson who caught the ball in stride and was finally taken down at the Easton 8 yard-line.

This is as close as the Freedom offense could get as the Rover defense put the clamps on and forced a game tying field goal attempt with just seconds remaining.  The 26 yard kick sailed just barely wide right, and Easton escaped with the victory, 17-14.

After the game I was able to track down Easton’s Noah Borluca and Cole Ordway for some post game comments.

With this victory, Easton remains undefeated on the year at 9-0 and will travel to Nazareth(7-2) who will be looking to bounce back from a loss at Northampton(4-5) this week.  With the defeat, Freedom moves to 5-4 on the year and will face off next week against rival Liberty(6-3) who were victorious over Bethlehem Catholic(5-4) this week.

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