Football Friday: With Ferrys, Marple Newtown has found a twinning formula

NEWTOWN TWP. – Liam and Colin Ferry are easy to pick out among the Marple Newtown football players, the two guys towering over most of their teammates. Once you start talking with them, it’s even easier to tell them apart from each other.

Take Wednesday’s practice. You could find Liam either rushing from his defensive end spot during drills or chirping from the sidelines when he wasn’t on the field. Colin is the big target split out wide for the Tigers offense, with his loping strides and reliable set of hands, one who slinks into the background anonymously between his reps.

When Marple coach Chris Gicking says their personalities are pretty different despite their entries to the world being separated by two minutes, it’s easy to be skeptical. But …

“We’re complete opposites,” said Liam, the older twin.

Let’s count the ways. Liam (6-3, 210 pounds) lines up in the trenches on both sides of the ball. In the twins’ other sport, lacrosse, he’s started full-time in goal since his sophomore season.

The through line in his chosen roles is a certain workmanlike demeanor that he relishes.

“It’s more contact, especially the defensive line,” Liam said. “You’re hitting every play, and when you make a sack or make a tackle in the backfield, I feel like, I did that. Receiver, I get it, you get all the glory and touchdowns and everything. But linemen, you really do the dirty work inside.”

Colin, standing 6-4 and 185 pounds, got the skill-position gene, evident from a few of the one-handed grabs he corralled during Wednesday’s drills. He enters Friday’s game with Conestoga seventh in Delco with 357 yards on 20 receptions with four touchdowns. Colin burned Harriton last week for nine catches for 188 yards and two touchdowns.

“Going out there and making big plays, scoring touchdowns, it’s so fun,” Colin said.

The difference in temperament is perhaps the most intriguing. Liam is certainly the chattier one, a trait that both agree has always been there. After years, it’s pretty engrained in the way they work together.

“I don’t know, he just never shuts up,” Colin said. “It’s always been like that.”

“Coach always likes to say, ‘Colin, stop talking.’ He doesn’t really talk, that’s the joke,” Liam said. “And I don’t really stop talking. I don’t know why it happens.”

Colin’s big game last week was just what the Tigers needed, rebooting their passing attack in the post-Anthony Paoletti era. Brian Joslin threw for 172 yards as he continues to settle into the role under center, and Andrew Cantwell added a 71-yard touchdown to Ferry in one of the Tigers’ myriad of gadget packages.

That was enough to get Colin yacking a little more, but it didn’t exempt him from the usual brotherly smack talk.

“It’s all he talked about this week,” Liam said. “It was funny because the one pass he dropped down the sideline that would’ve been a big gain, I was like, ‘dude, you had what, 200 yards, two touchdowns. How’d you drop that one?’ He was like, ‘yeah, I suck.’ I was like, ‘yeah, you’re right.’ All week he’s been joking about it.”

The communication on the gridiron is a lot different than when the brothers play together in lacrosse. Liam relishes being in goal, something he volunteered for at a young age and stuck with, despite the occasional thanklessness that he likens to being a kicker in football – only noticed when something goes awry. Colin, on the other hand, is a two-way midfielder who scored 20 goals last year on an injury-plagued Marple squad. He’s active on both ends of the field, particularly in transition with his speed.

That makes Colin Liam’s top target when he makes a save and looks to move the ball up the field. The communication on the lacrosse field, then, is much more direct and immediate than what football requires.

“It’s a lot different,” Colin said. “With that, we connect a lot more because there are more plays and I run defense with him, too. Him being the goalie, I have to help him out and be in the right spot.”

Still having each other on the football field has been a boon to both of them, an accomplishment that they can share. And that applies for celebrating the good and mocking the bad.

“When he starts making good plays, that’s when between me and him, he starts joking around, jokingly cocky between me and him,” Liam said. “It brings out the best in both of us because that’ll piss me off a little bit.”

“It’s great,” Colin said. “Just knowing you have people you can trust, especially my brother, even if it’s something I see on film that can help the line out, I tell him and he tells all the other linemen.”