Lansdale Catholic offense carries day in slugfest with Father Judge

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Dominic D’Adonna won’t have to look hard for highlights from his first win as a head football coach.

The first year Lansdale Catholic coach, leading a team for the first time after 36 years as an assistant at various stops, has plenty of film to pull from after his offense went wild in Saturday’s season opener. Only problem was the Crusaders’ defense was a little too giving itself, meaning the offense had to keep scoring to keep a tough Father Judge team at bay.

By the end of it, the numbers were eye-popping as LC held off Judge 44-42 to win its season opener at Wissahickon.

“I got the game ball too, I don’t know how,” D’Adonna said. “We’re definitely acting the ‘Cardiac Kids,’ that’s for sure. We definitely made it exciting but to their credit they just kept working, kept lining up and wanting to get after it.”

The productivity from LC’s offense is a bit surprising given that the Crusaders have really only been together for two weeks. Quarterback LJ Phillips only joined the program a couple weeks back but it was hard to tell with the numbers he posted.

Phillips, a 6-foot-3 presence, completed 15-of-19 passes for 339 yards and three scores and hit six different receivers as he picked apart the Judge secondary. Junior Jimmy Casey, a 6-foot-6 junior receiver who transferred into LC from Quakertown over the summer, led the team with 108 receiving yards and a touchdown on three grabs.

Senior Evan Hannings had 107 yards and a score on three catches and senior Pat Daly had 67 yards and a score on his two grabs. Complementing the aerial attack was senior Danny Dutkiewicz, who powered his way to 184 yards and three touchdowns on the ground on 17 carries.

“I started two weeks ago, I was excited they let me in and it’s been fun,” Phillips said. “I’ve only been here two weeks so seeing what we’ve been able to do out here is actually amazing. Jimmy and I have have been hanging out a lot, so we’re already friends and I feel like I’m friends with everyone else. It’s a family and I’m happy to be here.”

D’Adonna said the gameplan was to let Phillips be comfortable, so they didn’t run the junior quarterback much and just let him sit back and throw. He didn’t carry the ball much, but he did extend plays with his feet and used good blocking from his line to find receivers.

LC jumped out to a 10-0 lead thanks to a 50-yard Phillips pass to Daly on the game’s first drive and a 26-yard field goal from Brendan Menges. Judge got right back in the game on a touchdown early in the second quarter to set off the back-and-forth scoring race the rest of the day.

“I didn’t think we would score 44,” Casey said. “I also didn’t think we would let up 42. We definitely have work to do on both sides of the ball.”

Maybe it was a result of both teams wearing their home jerseys for the game, but both offenses seemed quite comfortable doing whatever they wanted during the game. Judge quarterback Aidan Dooley wasn’t far off Phillips’ mark, throwing for 334 yards and a trio of scores on 13-of-17 completions.

Wideout Dan Foy came a hashmark short of 200 yards and Shane McGovern, who gutted it out on both sides of the ball, had 85 yards through the air. Dooley, who added two rushing touchdowns, had TD passes of 82, 18 and 29 yards plus a handful of other completions for more than 30 yards.

“The big plays killed us,” D’Adonna said. “In the endgame, again, it’s a gutty effort by our kids. We talked about it all winter, ‘finishing, finishing, finishing.’ Looking at their tapes from last year I told them they were a first half team and we needed to improve on that to be around in the fourth quarter and win a football game.”

Casey felt the 42 points allowed was a defense-wide call to be better. Also a defensive end, the towering junior said the pass rush wasn’t strong enough and it left the secondary out to dry a little too much.

Although the defense gave up a lot of points, it never let Judge go in front and the unit came up with a couple key turnovers, including Kevin Gianoni recovering a fumble off a muffed punt that led to another LC score.

Saturday, the offense was in such a rhythm it was able to cover for the defense but the LC players know they won’t be able to count on a 44-point outburst every weekend. Still, they felt like they left points on the table.

“We had mess-ups, I did as well,” Phillips said. “I think we could have scored 60, but we left some out there and we’re going to have to work on that.”

LC will be down the shore next week for its annual meeting with Penn Charter in Ocean City, NJ. If this is what the Crusaders could produce with just two full weeks together, the extra week of practice could lead to more.

“The coaches are great, they get everyone in at practice so you get to run with everyone,” Casey said. “We run different sets and get the chemistry up.”

LANSDALE CATHOLIC 44, FATHER JUDGE 42
LANSDALE CATHOLIC 10 7 14 13  – 44
FATHER JUDGE 0 14 14 14 – 42

Scoring Plays
1^st Quarter
LC – LJ Phillips 50 pass to Pat Daly (Brendan Menges kick) 10:20
LC – Menges 26 field goal 6:04

2^nd Quarter
FJ – Nasir Baskerville 4 run (Jack Isdell kick) 10:26
LC – Phillips 26 pass to Jimmy Casey (Menges kick) 5:06
FJ – Aidan Dooley 4 run (Isdell kick) 1:08

3^rd Quarter
LC – Danny Dutkiewicz 1 run (Menges kick) 9:23
FJ – Dooley 18 pass to Dan Foy (Isdell kick) 5:56
LC – Phillips 63 pass to Evan Hannings (Menges kick) 4:56
FJ – Dooley 29 pass to Aaron Bitten-Bender (Isdell kick) 45.5

4^th Quarter
LC – Dutkiewicz 3 run (Menges kick) 5:10
FJ – Dooley 82 pass to Foy (Isdell kick) 4:54
LC – Dutkiewicz 5 run (kick blocked) 1:01
FJ – Dooley 12 run (Isdell kick) 32.5

Team Stats

LC FJ
First Downs 17 16
Rushes-Yards 32-202 33-135
Passing 15-19-3-0 13-17-3-1
Passing Yards 339 334
Total Yards 541 469
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 4-2
Penalties-Yards 7-62 9-90
Individual Stats

Rushing: LC – Danny Dutkiewicz 17-184, Peter McHugh 3-5, LJ Phillips 5-(-5), Eddie Quinn 4-11, Luke Shrager 3-7; FJ – Shane McGovern 1-1, Zach Bayer 1-(-5), Aidan Dooley 13-55, Nasir Baskerville 9-27, Damier Johnson 9-57
Passing: LC – LJ Phillips 15-19-339-3-0; FJ – Aidan Dooley 13-17-334-3-1
Receiving: LC – McHugh 2-18, Pat Daly 2-67, Dutkiewicz 3-24, Quinn 2-15, Evan Hannings 3-107, Jimmy Casey 3-108; FJ – Dan Foy 5-199, McGovern 4-85, Matt Comas 1-46, Johnson 1-6, Aaron Bitten-Bender 1-29, Kevin Kelly 1-12.