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Nazareth remains undefeated, Handles Freedom

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

| September 13, 2025

Bethlehem-

Nazareth’s offense just too much for Freedom as the Blue Eagles leave Bethlehem with the victory, but also some bumps and bruises.

To start the game, Nazareth won the coin toss and deferred to the 2nd half.  Freedom took the ball and Nazareth chose to defend the scoreboard end of BASD stadium field.  After receiving the opening kick, the Patriot offense wasted little time getting moving as Lashawn Johnson found a hole in the Nazareth defense and rumbled 56 yards all the way down to the Blue Eagle 3 yard line and he then went in to score right thereafter to put the Patriots up early, 7-0.

Nazareth immediately responded on their opening with a methodical drive of their own which was capped off by a Peyton Falzone pass out wide to Tanner Zelachowski who was able to sneak just inside the far pylon to knot the game at 7 with 8:04 remaining in the opening quarter.


On their ensuing possession, Freedom was forced to punt the ball back to Nazareth.  However, the punt was muffed and Freedom pounced on the ball to give the Patriots’ offense great field position to start once again.  The Freedom offense made good on this new opportunity and a few plays later, Freedom running back Jahaire Hughes bowled his way across the goal line for another Freedom touchdown and once again, the lead in the game.


Not to be outdone on the ground, Nazareth’s Marquez Wimberly took a 27 yard scamper up the middle of the Freedom defense on the ensuing drive and immediately tied the game back up.  This time, at 14, with 3:43 remaining in the 1st quarter.

Freedoms’ next offensive series saw the Patriots move the ball down the field thanks to a long pass and catch from quarterback Michael Stofanak to Davyan Moore which set up the Patriots deep in Nazareth territory.  This opportunity was all for naught as they came away with no points on this drive after an attempted field goal smashed off the upright and was no good.


Looking to feed off this momentum swing and missed opportunity by Freedom, Falzone took a shot deep over the Freedom defense on his offense’s first play after the missed field goal and connected with Tanner Zelachowski who was wide open down the middle of the Patriot defense for an 80 yard touchdown to put Nazareth up 21-14 over Freedom.

Looking to answer back, Freedom drove right down the field on their next possession.  They came away with no points however due to a solid tackle by Wimberly on 4th down at the Nazareth 37.  Nazareth immediately looked deep again, and Falzone found Tanner Zelachowski once again for a big gain. Two plays later, Falzone called his own number and took it in from a yard out to put Nazareth up by 2 scores, 28-14, with 8:14 left in the first half.

Looking to close the gap, Freedom’s Stofanak took a shot deep over the middle on the 2nd play of their next drive. The pass ended up being intercepted by Nazareth’s Kaiden Buscemi who was able to bring the ball in with a spectacular one handed grab over the Patriot wideout.

Nazareth didn’t let this opportunity go to waste as falzone found Tanner Zelachowski to start the drive for a solid 35 yard gain.  Just 2 plays later, Nazareth’s Marquez Wimberly found the enzone once again for this 2nd score of the evening.  With 4:36 remaining in the first half, Nazareth was starting to pull away, 35-14.

However, just like Lee Corso loved to say…”Not so fast my friend!”, Freedom fired right back on their next possession with Stofanak finding Davyan Moore down the middle of the Nazareth defense for a 49 yard touchdown strike to once again make it a 2 score game with 3:26 remaining in the half.

Nazareth was not going to let Freedom sneak back in to this game and Wimberly made sure of it on the next Nazareth possession as he took a handoff from Falzone 42 yards to the house to stretch the lead back to 21, 42-21, in favor of the visiting Blue Eagles heading in to half-time.

The Nazareth offense took the field to start the 2nd half, however they were missing a key component as quarterback Peyton Falzone was nowhere to be seen on the sideline.  With that, sophomore back-up quarterback Cooper Madson was thrust in to service for the Blue Eagles.  The first drive with him at the helm failed to produce much and Nazareth was forced to punt.  In response, Freedom looked to take advantage of the quarterback change for Nazareth, but the Blue Eagle defense stood tall and force the Patriots to go 3 and out on their opening possession of the 2nd half. The Nazareth offense then got a shot of adrenaline as Wimberly struck again, this time from 49 yards out for the score.

The teams traded 3 and outs back and forth in to the final quarter until Madson uncorked a deep shot to his best friend and wideout Luke Depietro for a 76 yard strike to put Nazareth up 56-21 with just under 10 minutes remaining in the game.

This strike capped the scoring for the evening as Nazareth came away victorious over Freedom 56-21.  After the game I was able to track down Nazareth quarterback Cooper Madson and running back Marquez Wimberly to see what they had to say about this evening’s contest.

With the victory Nazareth moves to 4-0 on the season and will take on undefeated Parkland(4-0) with is fresh off a thrashing of Pleasant Valley this past Thursday night.  With this defeat, Freedom is now 1-3 and will look to rebound against Allen (3-1) next week who is fresh off a loss to East Stroudsburg South.

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