Mayhem’s Game of the Week- Souderton @ Pennridge (Week2)

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Michael Pietrangelo | August 31, 2023

Mayhem’s Game of the Week

The Game:
Souderton Indians @ Pennridge Rams
Friday, September 1, 2023
Kickoff: 7 pm
Helman Field
1228 N 5th Street, Perkasie, Pa 18944

Last 3 Meetings:

9/2/22: Souderton 24, Pennridge 21 (Regular Season)

11/13/20 Souderton 31, Pennridge 17 (State Playoff)

9/20/19 Souderton 24, Pennridge 21 (Regular Season)

The Details:
Souderton Indians
Head Coach: Ed Gallagher (21st Season)
League: Suburban One-Continental Conference(6A)
Season: (1-0) overall (0-0) Conference
Last Week: Won, 21-17 over Haverford

Indian’s Notables: A year ago the Indians made the district quarterfinals but lost to Perkiomen Valley 27-14. Head Coach Ed Gallagher and company return their entire starting defense and a majority of their starters on the offensive side of the ball. Week 1 saw a challenge in a very strong Haverford squad however, Big Red dug deep and prevailed 21-17. Senior running back Ryan Sadowski scored 2 receiving TDs and a rushing score in a dominating performance. Starting QB So Ben Walsh completed 73% of his passes for 196 yards and 2 TDs. Senior Standout WR Danny Dyches hauled in 6 catches for 85 yards. The defense had one pick from Timmy Meehan to go along with 4 sacks from Kahlil Williams, Aiden Elliot, Tom Gonce, & Joey Nase each. Will the dominance continue this week against the Rams or are they to strong? Head Coach Ed Gallagher enters his 21st season with high expectations. This team has many great players, one that sticks out to Ed is Joey Nase. He says, “Joey was an all-league TE DE as a sophomore. The knee injury robbed him of the majority of his junior season, so he’s excited to be back at full strength again for his senior campaign. He has a great motor and work ethic. Joey is a relentless pass rusher, and he uses his hands well to shed blocks.” I had to meet him for myself, so we chatted about the upcoming game and its meaning for those not familiar. I started off with, “How much of a rivalry for you guys is this considering how close the schools are to each other?” Joey responded, “Yeah you know it’s the type of rivalry where we’ve had this game circled on our calendar since January. And all throughout this week’s practices, there’s been a different type of energy due to the rivalry between our two schools.” I followed that with,” I had to know then, “Do you have a favorite or least favorite memory from this rivalry?” and immediately he replied, “My favorite moment was my sack in last year’s game. It was on third down right before the end of the first half causing them to punt. Keeping them to only 6 points in the first half.” I then asked, “So, in order to be successful on Friday night what does your team need to do on offense and defensively what is going to be key for your team?” He said, “Our offense has to come out of the gate firing on all cylinders. And we’re going to have to establish our run game early on and keep running down their throats until they can stop it. On the defensive side, we also need to come out strong. We’ll need to assert our dominance up front and stick to our assignments and keys, in order to give our linebackers their looks and come clean so they can make the tackles and make their jobs easier.”

Pennridge Rams
Head Coach: Kyle Beller (1st Season)
League: Suburban One-National Conference(6A)
Season: (0-1) overall (0-0) Conference
Last Week: Lost, 43-0 to Downingtown East
Ram’s Notables: Pennridge has had 3 new head coaches over the last three seasons and only 6 prior to that. Their last victory came in Week 4 almost a year ago (34-0) against Abington. Since then, their losing streak is at 8 games dating back to last year. Enter newly hired Head Coach Kyle Beller & Company back in February. The restructuring of an entire system as well as culture is a hard task in such a short time. These things generally take years to cultivate. While excitement begins to brew, week 1 was not indicative of all the hard work put in by the staff & players when they traveled to Downingtown East and were defeated 43-0 by the Cougars. This week, Kyle makes his home coaching debut at Helman Field against cross-town rival Souderton. Do the Rams have what it takes to end this winless drought? This would definitely spark some positivity in the community for sure. One of those Rams charged with righting the ship is Junior Linebacker & Captain Trevor Fuhs. Last week against the Cougars he registered 11 tackles for his squad. Head Coach Kyle Beller says, “He is a hard worker and has battled back from an injury that ended his season last year. He has gained the respect of his teammates by being voted one of the team captains. In the classroom, he represents what a student-athlete should look like.” I caught up with Trevor during the week and we chatted about the rivalry and his keys to victory. I started with the most obvious question, “How big of a rivalry for you guys is this considering how close the schools are to each other? He responded, “Man this game has been a rivalry game ever since we’ve played each other in Pop Warner, especially last year’s game, in season is always a dogfight between our two teams.” I then hit him with, “So do you have a favorite or least favorite memory related to playing Souderton?” He responded, “My favorite memory playing Souderton was last year when we had crucial defensive drives to keep our offense in the game and my least favorite memory is last year’s game ending because we 100% could’ve come out winning last year but made little mistakes throughout the whole game and those always add up, just that sour, gut-wrenching feeling of a loss is the worst especially in a rivalry game like this.” I then needed to know, “In order to be successful on Friday night what does your team need to do offensively?” After a pause, he responded, “Our offense just needs to execute our plays, hit our blocks, run our routes, and play as a team; There’s nothing especially wrong with our offense in my opinion, we just need to come together better.” I ended my questions with, “Defensively what is going to be key for your team?” With an emphasis on communication, he added, “Defensively we need to get our calls from the sideline, communicate, and just play ball the way we know how, simple as that.”

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