Kerwood’s air attack shows Upper Darby the Weh
UPPER DARBY — Coach Rich Gentile is happy to have two quarterbacks on the field when his Upper Darby team is on offense and one when the Royals are playing defense.
Senior Marson Weh, who, in his words, “never comes off the field,” has become, in Gentile’s words, “my quarterback on defense” and also makes key contributions on offense. Junior Kevin Kerwood takes the snaps from center and runs Upper Darby’s air and ground attack.
Weh caught three of Kerwood’s passes for 111 yards and two touchdowns Friday night. He also had what would have been a 62-yard punt return for a score wiped out by a penalty.
Kerwood was 10 for 14 passing for 190 yards and four scores and got Upper Darby’s first TD on a short run. In the fourth quarter, Kareem McAdams added a 19-yard touchdown run and Dezhan Peterson ran 41 yards with an intercepted pass to close out the scoring as Upper Darby earned a 47-0 Central League decision over Harriton at Memorial Field.
“Marson means so much to us on both sides of the ball,” Gentile said. “You saw what happened on that one pass. He caught the ball on the run, and you knew he was gone.
“There are times when he and I just sit down and talk about our defense and our coverages. He knows when to play zone or man-to-man. And he comes up like a truck. It’s a shame he didn’t get that touchdown on the punt return.”
Weh, who had four interceptions in the Royals’ win over Martin Luther King last week, had the Senior Night crowd cheering for more Friday with his long scoring reception in the second quarter. Kerwood put the ball in his arms perfectly, and Weh raced to the end zone.
“Our game plan is usually to run the ball,” Weh said. “Their defense was stopping us a little in the beginning, so we went to the pass to move the ball better.”
Less than three minutes after his first TD, Weh had the fans screaming again as he took a punt, headed toward the home sideline, cut back and beat the coverage team on his way to the end zone, only to have his celebration cut short by a penalty flag.
“Our blocking was to the right,” Weh said. “When I got by a guy I saw that I could cut it back and so I went for it.”
With 41 seconds to play in the first half, Weh took a short swing pass from Kerwood and followed Brandon Sinclair’s block into the end zone to give Kerwood his fourth scoring pass and the Royals (6-1, 4-1) a commanding 33-0 lead over the Rams (1-6, 0-6).
“The receivers get the ball, and that’s why I like to keep throwing,” Kerwood said.
Gentile was happy with his young quarterback’s efforts.
“This was one of his better games,” the coach said. “The pass to (Shawn) McCullough was beautifully thrown. Sometimes you forget that Kevin’s only a junior. He’s running the ball better and making correct reads on the power option.”
Junior Max Copley accounted for much of Harriton’s 128 yards of total offense with 89 yards rushing on 15 carries.
“Our line blocked better than in a lot of our other games,” Copley said. “We’ve got to have a good week of practice to get ready for Conestoga next week. And then we have our Lower Merion game, and we know we’ll have to be ready when we play them.”
