Errors, bad luck hurt Jenkintown in loss to George School

JENKINTOWN >> A three-play sequence in the third quarter provided a pretty good view of how Jenkintown’s day went.

After driving down the field trying to cut into a lead, quarterback Andres Madden was picked off at the five yard line with a short return. The next play, the Drakes got into the backfield and dropped George School dynamo Luke Haug for a loss.

Then, with George School backed up to its own three-yard line, a Drakes defender tipped Haug’s pass, only for it to fall into the hands of big tight end Kiany Probherbs, who went 97 yards for a touchdown.

Things kept finding a way to go worse for Jenkintown, which was defeated 49-14 by the visiting Cougars Saturday morning.

“It was a calamity of errors,” Drakes coach Anthony Owens said. “We’d stop them for a play or two, we had them in long third down situations and they’d just run something we went over 100 times and still complete the pass.”

Haug was a one-man wrecking crew, running for 203 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries as well as throwing for 285 yards and five more scores. Jenkintown knew exactly what was coming, but the Drakes’ pass defense got burned several times in the first quarter, allowing the Cougars to build a 22-0 lead after on quarter.

Even that was a good example of what went wrong for the Drakes. After going down 14-0, Jenkintown was driving when a botched handoff resulted in a lost fumble and TD drive for George School. The Cougars botched their own snap on the extra point, but managed to get off a flare pass and Haug ran it in for two.

“You just have to think positive and block out all that other stuff,” Drakes running back Steven Charlemagne said. “My mentality is I’m just going to run hard because when you start thinking about all the other things, that’s when you start falling back.”

Charlemagne was a warrior for Jenkintown, rushing for 145 yards and playing heavy snaps at linebacker. By the fourth quarter, he was visibly exhausted from taking hit after hit while he extended runs and also laying hits on Haug and anyone else touching the ball for the George School.

After the first quarter, the Drakes started to stabilize, beginning with their last drive of the opening frame. Just 10 seconds into the second quarter, Charlemagne got his team on the board with a 26-yard run. The Drakes got two stops around a punt of their own, then got solid field position on a Charlemagne punt return and a pass inference flag drawn by Greg Farina.

The drive ended when Madden drove in from three yards out to cut the lead down to 22-14 and it seemed like Jenkintown had weathered the worst of it.

Then, on 2nd-and-6, Haug slipped out of a tackle five yards into the backfield and ripped off a 39-yard run that started a quick touchdown drive that put the Cougars ahead 29-14 with a minute left in the half.

“It was a tough hill to climb,” Owens said. “I was hoping we could control the ball a little bit and keep (Haug) and those guys off the field. When they scored that touchdown at the end, I thought it would be a little bit shaky but I knew we were getting the ball.”

Owens was optimistic his team could go down and again cut into the lead, but on 2nd-and-2 at the Cougar 15, Madden threw the pick and two plays later, George School was up 22 points once again.

“Those things certainly don’t help, but the reality is we just have to play better,” Owens said. “We have to be more consistent. We weren’t and it caught up to us.”

If the long touchdown wasn’t the end of Jenkintown, the score on the next drive was. After forcing the Drakes to turn it over on downs, George School moved down the field, aided by a shaky pass interference call, then got a touchdown after Haug fumbled the snap, picked it up and hit Probherbs over the middle for a seven-yard score.

Haug put on the final margin when he slithered out of the backfield and found the left sideline for a 70-yard run in the fourth quarter.
Sitting at 2-1, Jenkintown goes into league play at New Hope-Solebury looking to regroup quickly.

“We can take out of it we need to keep our heads a little smaller,” Charlemagne said. “We had big heads coming into the game and that’s what really killed us. We can hang with this team, but that’s the stuff that killed us.”

Farina and Christian Solis both had a spectacular sideline grab for the Drakes and Solis showed plenty by picking up 48 yards rushing when he replaced Charlemagne in the fourth quarter. Charlemagne was the loudest cheerleader on the sideline when he was taken out and the junior was going to and from teammates after the game giving them pep talks.

The back felt it was a mental challenge for his team to try and mount a comeback, but he’s not doubting his team’s ability.

“We’re still a good team,” Charlemagne said. “I look at Denver Broncos, they were down (against the Kansas City Chiefs) and they came back and I think we can do things like that. We have to stay mentally in the game and stay positive, that’s all we need to do.”

Top Photo: George School’s Luke Haug (7) shrugs off Jenkintown defenders en route to a touchdown during second-half action of their contest at Jenkintown High School on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2015. (Mark C Psoras/The Reporter)