Johnson, Penn Wood beat Chester, breathe sighs of relief

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CHESTER >> Desman Johnson and his Penn Wood teammates breathed sighs of relief as Kennedy Poles stood up and walked gingerly off the field Saturday at the Chester Athletic Complex.

The star wide receiver and All-Delco player nearly made an acrobatic catch in the end zone in the fourth quarter of the Patriots’ eventual 20-0 Del Val League victory. Poles landed hard and awkwardly on the turf. He lay motionless for about a minute.

“I was happy that he was back up,” said Johnson, Penn Wood’s outstanding junior quarterback. “I didn’t want him to go back in after that.”

Coach Ato Troop said that Poles suffered a back injury.

“He took a knee to his spine there, but we hope he’ll be fine,” Troop said. “We’ll evaluate him.”

Poles, the leading receiver in the county, finished the day with four catches for 65 yards to help the Patriots (5-1, 4-1 Del Val) bounce back from last week’s loss at West Chester Rustin. Johnson was 17-for-24 through the air for 222 yards and a pair of touchdown passes. He also added a scoring run.

But this game belonged to the Penn Wood defense, which stymied Chester’s high-powered offense. A week ago quarterback Tahree Fuller-Bryan threw for a Chester program record 360 yards in a 69-34 loss to Haverford School. Saturday was a different story. Fuller-Bryan completed only two passes for 25 yards and was sacked three times. Senior defensive back Edmund Dennis and the Patriots held Chester (1-5, 0-1) to 30 yards of total offense and three first downs. Among the standouts were linebackers Aliyoh Turay and Jason Melchor, defensive backs Dennis and Elijah Gleplay, and linemen Christian Suber and Dawshawn Brickle.

“We just did a lot of the little things today,” Dennis said. “We know that Chester can’t compete with us. They’re going to talk trash, which they did, and they can be the best trash-talking team in the county and we’ll be one of the best football teams in the county. We don’t pay attention to any of that. We just stuck to the basics, took care of our assignments and got off the field. We knew if we hit them hard, they weren’t going to stay in the game. We caused (four) fumbles and just kept hitting them.

“The game plan was to make them not want to play football players anymore.”

A post-play skirmish in the first half resulted in the ejection of two Chester football players. Cooler heads prevailed and there were no further incidents. In such a heated rivalry, emotions can get the best of athletes.

“We talked to our kids about it. A lot of these kids know each other, a couple of them play 7-on-7 together,” Troop said. “We knew there would be some yapping, but it was important keeping their composure. We did a better job of it in the second half.

“I’m proud of our effort, I knew it would be a tough game. I’m especially proud of our defense because they dominated the game.”

After suffering their first loss of the year to Rustin, the Patriots wanted to make a statement against the Clippers.

“That team (Rustin) shouldn’t have even been able to compete with us,” Dennis said. “We hurt ourselves in that game. We were doing the little things wrong, like lining up wrong and stuff like that. We were doing that the whole game and that’s our fault. We didn’t adjust to that. We know if we played them today, we’d blow them out.”

As for Saturday’s game, both touchdown passes from Johnson were highlight-reel plays. On fourth-and-goal, early in the second quarter, Johnson rolled out to his left and was in the process of being sacked when he got a throw off just in time, finding running back Tayshon Harmon in the end zone for a 16-yard touchdown connection. In the fourth quarter, the Patriots put the game to bed when Johnson and Anauri Hankey hooked up on a 14-yard scoring pass. Hankey jumped high in the air to haul in the catch.

“We knew they wanted to take away the deep ball, so we ran a lot of short passes and things like that,” Johnson said. “We didn’t change a lot though. They’re a good team and they gave a good effort, and so did we.”

Gleplay was the Patriots’ top rusher, finishing with 68 yards on eight carries. Turay added 25 yards on four totes. For Penn Wood, this was not a bad way to respond coming off a disappointing loss.

“We actually had a pretty good start last week, five times inside the 30-yard line and only scored twice. We allowed them to stay in the game and they ended up beating us,” Troop said. “So, we stressed a lot of the little things and finishing drives. We knew Chester was going to play us tough and they came out and did a good job. Our defense did a good job all day.”

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Matt Smith

Matt Smith
Matt Smith is a sports writer with the Delaware County Daily Times. To contact him, email msmith@delcotimes.com or follow him on Twitter @DTMattSmith.

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