Pippin steps up as Owen J. Roberts drop Boyertown, 35-13
BOYERTOWN >> Bryce Pippin earned every snap he took behind center Friday night.
Owen J. Roberts’ freshman linebacker — and evidently their backup quarterback — made a living in Boyertown’s backfield on the night.
In turn, he also took over his own team’s backfield when starter Cooper Chamberlain went down during the second half.
Pippin finished with three of the Wildcats’ five defensive sacks to highlight a stingy defensive effort on the way to a 35-13 win at BASH Memorial Stadium.
“I just went in and did whatever I had to do,” said Pippin. “I kind of started off slow — I got knocked on my butt a couple times (on defense) in the first quarter. But we rallied back and kept fighting.”
Boyertown (0-2 Pioneer Athletic Conference Liberty Division, 1-5 overall) marched it the length of the field on their opening drive highlighted by Jamie Moccia’s 42-yard touchdown carry four minutes in.
From there, though, the OJR defense set the tone.
The Wildcats (1-1, 4-2) held Boyertown to just five total yards the rest of the first half while bringing an unanswered 28-point scoring run into the third quarter.
“We came in hungry, but they caught us off guard,” said Pippin. “We definitely game-planned for him (Moccia). We didn’t know if he was going to play or not because he missed time last week. But we did a good job containing him after that opening drive.”
OJR running back Marcus Martin racked up 95 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 32 carries while Chamberlain accounted for 167 total yards with a two-yard rushing touchdown as well as a 50-yard touchdown pass to Dante DeNardo before leaving the game in the third quarter.
“I was hoping to play him one side of the ball as a freshman,” said OJR head coach Rich Kolka of Pippin, whose role offensively was mostly handing the ball off to Martin but carried it himself a few times. “He’s been playing defense for us a few weeks now and he stepped up.”
Boyertown’s offense was held to just 157 total yards with Moccia racking up 88 rushing yards with a pair of touchdowns.
Sophomore quarterback Noah Segal — filling in for injured starter Ayden Mathias — never got too comfortable behind center. For the night, he completed just 5 of 16 passing attempts for 47 yards. He was sacked three times by Pippin and twice by Aidan Hayward and had a throw intercepted by Ian Sordilla during the first quarter.
“I cant be more proud of that kid,” pointed out Boyertown head coach TJ Miller of Segal. “A year ago, he’s playing freshman games on Thursday afternoons, and now he’s starting at 6A varsity football in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He didn’t back down for us, he made some good throws and played tough.”
Having now lost five straight since their season-opening win in Week 1, the road won’t get any easier from here for the Bears.
Boyertown travels to perennial power Spring-Ford next Friday night before heading to two-time defending league champ Perkiomen Valley a week later.
“We’ve got to go one game at a time,” said Miller. “You wake up in the morning, start the tractor and go back to work. Things don’t go your way, but you can’t worry about two games at once. We can’t look too far ahead, we’ve just got to get ready for next week.”
Owen J. Roberts will host Norristown next week before bringing in Spring-Ford on Oct. 12.
Honorary Captain >> U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Philip Sobeck served as honorary captain for the Bears prior to the game.
Sobeck, a 1985 graduate of Boyertown, earned the Defensive Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal as well as other unit and campaign awards during his time of service.
