Downingtown East shakes off slow start to roll over Roman Catholic

DOWNINGTOWN >> Even Mother Nature could not slow down the Downingtown East Cougars Friday night.

After a delay of one hour and six minutes, the Cougars’ nonleague clash with Roman Catholic at Kottmeyer Stadium was called with 2:37 left in the third quarter due to repeated lightning strikes. Downingtown East (3-0) was awarded the 42-7 nonleague victory over the winless Cahillites. (0-3).

But, as usual against Roman Catholic, things did not start well for Downingtown East. A fumbled Cougar punt resulted in a 15-yard scoring toss from Rhyme Robinson to Evan Thorpe for an early 7-0 Roman lead.

Then, Downingtown East came up with the big play it needed and it turned the tide of the game for the rest of the night.

With the ball at midfield, Robinson dropped back to throw, let the pass go and Downingtown East linebacker Connor Noble picked off the pass and raced 55 yards untouched to the end zone, and suddenly the momentum had shifted to the Cougars.

“I saw they were going to go to the bubble screen and I read the quarterback and he threw the ball right at me,” Noble said. “Then, I just took off and got a couple nice blocks from my teammates to get to the end zone. Roman always gets out early on us, last year it was 21-0 but we came back and played well and took control of the game. After these three wins I can say we are getting better every week and we have a chance to be a real good team.”

Downingtown East pulled out one of its old tricks as it popped the kickoff up in the air and came down with the football when the Roman return man fumbled it. After a 10-play drive that featured the running of Garvey Jonassaint, Zach Hamilton and quarterback Luke Davis, it was a big 28-yard pass to Jack O’Reilly that put the Cougars in business at the Roman 4-yard line. Davis busted in from the one on a third and goal play to give the Cougars a lead they would never relinquish at 13-7. Davis accounted for two rushing and two passing scores for the Cougars.

Davis scored again after a Roman three and out as the senior signal-caller went 34 yards around the left side, reading his blockers well for a 20-7 Downingtown East advantage. The Cougar defense, which held Roman to just 82 yards of total offense, gave the ball back to the Cougar offense again. After a nine-play drive, Hamilton bulled in from two yards out and the Cougars had a commanding 27-7 halftime edge.

“We as usual, started slowly again against Roman,” Downingtown East head coach Mike Matta said. “They are real tough Philly kids and I like playing them. We really could not get our running game going like we did last week so we threw the ball a little more than usual. Roman had a good scheme against us and I was impressed by them.”

Jonassaint took a 24-yard scoring pass from Davis on the first drive of the second half to make it a 34-7 game and Roman was all but out of answers. Downingtown East closed out the scoring when Davis hit Matt Harootunian with perfect 20-yard bullet to put the game into the mercy rule after Jonassaint ran the two point conversion in. Two minutes later, the lightning came, and after a prolonged delay, the officials talked to both coaches and the game was declared an official game.

“We really feel good about being 3-0,” Matta said. “The first game we played with PW, they were not very good but we played real well against a good Perkiomen Valley club and tonight, we beat a tough, physical Philly team in Roman Catholic. So, we head to league play next week against Avon Grove right where we want to be but we have things we want to clean up also.”