Conrad Weiser deals Daniel Boone first defeat

ROBESONIA >> Koran Jordan ended up being a very talented decoy Friday night.

Not in workload, no. Jordan, Conrad Weiser’s talented running back, got the football. He carried 18 times for 57 yards against visiting Daniel Boone in the Berks

League Section 1 opener for both squads. But rather, from the sense that the Blazers’ game-planning for him allowed Pierce Brosious, another weapon, to shine brightly.

Brosious, a senior, scored three touchdowns – including turning an innocent screen pass in the flat into an 87-yard TD reception – as the Scouts dismantled the Blazers, 31-10.

Conrad Weiser (1-0 Berks 1, 2-2 overall) wrestled away control of what was thought to be, coming in, a hotly-contested game by living off the big plays Brosious provided.

“Based on last week and week before that, we knew a lot teams would be focusing on Koran,” Brosious said. “And that opened it up.”
Simply put, Boone could not contain him. Brosious set up the first score of the game on a 24-yard punt return, then popped the ensuing snap for a 25-yard run to the end zone to break the ice late in the opening quarter.

The soul-crushing screen pass-turned-touchdown delivered from quarterback Tyler Hoss happened with just 24 seconds to play in the first half and gave the Scouts a 21-7 lead.

“There was some great blocking out there, downfield some great blocks,” Brosious said. “We thought they were going to be in prevent there, so they’re going to be playing deep, so the hit screen would work.”

Daniel Boone (0-1, 3-1) head coach Bill Parks sensed the play was a turning point.

“When you give up big plays it changes the momentum of the game,” Parks said. “They did a good job on that play and our kids didn’t. It’s as simple as that.”
Brosious then capped things off with a 32-yard run for a third score midway through the third quarter, the capper to a quick five-play, 42-yard foray. It gave Weiser a commanding 28-10 lead with 7:03 left in the quarter.

The night started off smartly for Boone. The Blazers embarked on an opening 13-play, 53-yard drive that hit the wall when Spencer McIntosh, carrying the freight, was tossed for a two-yard loss on second-and-10 at the Weiser 25. Quarterback Nick Hughes threw a pair of incompletions on third and fourth down and the drive died.

McIntosh accounted for 29 yards on six totes during that first drive and looked as though he’d be a factor all night. But Weiser adjusted in the trenches to his presence, and secondary options proved not as fruitful. He ended with 47 yards on 11 carries.

“They did a good job making adjustments,” Parks said of Weiser’s trench play. “They ran some blitzes where we got some looks that we didn’t want to run the ball inside. They took away what we doing successfully and we were unable to counteract that. … They were controlling the line of scrimmage on us.”

Hughes had a tough night under center, going just 5 of 20 for 101 yards. He rushed for 68 yards on 20 carries. Defensively, he picked Hoss off at the Blazers 5 late in the third to thwart another Scouts’ drive.

“We’d like to see him do better,” Parks said. “Gotta work harder. He’s got make better reads and decisions with the ball. For a third-year starter, you want more out of that. So we’ve got to coach him up.”

Boone tied the game at 7 early in the second quarter on a 1-yard plunge by Hughes, who engineered an 11-play, 80-yard drive by rushing for 43 yards of it.

But Jordan countered that with a four-yard run for a score on Weiser’s next possession, the ending to an eight-play, 71-yard response.

Kicker Drew Kresge crushed a 47-yard field goal for the Blazers, as the buzzer sounded, to end the first half, slicing the deficit to 21-10. Weiser kicker Jake Roth responded with a school-record 46-yard boot early in the fourth for the final margin.