Cheltenham starts strong, tops Quakertown
CHELTENHAM >> Nate Edwards was waiting all night for it.
The Cheltenham senior had an all-around big night but when his team needed a jolt in the fourth quarter, Edwards was there. After a dominant first half, the Panthers were being pushed a bit by a Quakertown team eager to get back in the game.
Instead, Edwards intercepted a deflected pass and took it back 37 yards for a momentum changing pick-six.
Cheltenham rode its stellar first half to a 30-12 win over visiting Quakertown on Friday night.
“I saw the quarterback rolling out, he saw the slant so I stepped up and when they missed the ball, I caught it,” Edwards said. “My blocks were there, I saw one hole, stepped in, stepped out and it was perfect.”
Cheltenham (4-1, 1-0 SOL American) led 24-0 at the half, with its defense getting a stop every time Quakertown (1-4, 1-1) had the ball and its offense scoring every time it touched the ball. The play up front was good on both sides of the ball, the linebackers were really strong and in total, Cheltenham didn’t do much wrong in the first 24 minutes of play.
Edwards wasn’t the only Cheltenham player with an interception. Senior safety TJ Harris picked off three passes, all in the first half, as the home-standing Panthers put the clamps on the visiting Panthers before the intermission.
“They kept running a lot of outs so once we caught on, we stepped up,” Edwards said. “When they went for those outs, we were there for the plays we needed to happen.”
Last week, the Panthers finished strong in a win over Norristown but on Friday, they were happy to get to a strong start. Winning for the second straight week after losing to archrival Abington, the Panthers are still not where they want to be heading into next week’s showdown with Upper Dublin.
“That’s what I said to them after the game,” Cheltenham coach Ryan Nase said. “You’re not going to beat Upper Dublin, Plymouth Whitemarsh, any of the teams we have in the next month in front of us if you only play one half. We’ve got to put it together, we lost a bunch of really important guys between mental mistakes and injuries and we’re going to be down some starters next week.”
Edwards only had one reception, but it was an important one. His 40-yard catch-and-run score made it 17-0 midway through the second quarter.
“Our coaches looked at their defense and saw they were playing a few yards off, my quarterback (Adonis Hunter) looked at me and gave me a chance,” Edwards said. “My line held their blocks long enough for the quarterback to get the ball out and we all made it happen.”
LINING UP
The Panthers’ first half dominance started up front on both sides of the ball.
While the offensive line came in beat up and left even more wounded, that didn’t stop the guys up front from opening up plenty of room for Jamir Barnes and giving Adonis Hunter time to throw in the first half. On the other side, the defensive line only notched on sack but they flushed Quakertown quarterback Will Seitch out of the pocket time and time again, which helped the secondary pick up four interceptions.
Nasir Carson was right in the middle of all of it.
“As the center, I was just trying to get my line right so we could run the ball down their throat,” Carson said. “We wanted to keep the foot on the gas, keep running the ball and just try our best.”
By halftime, Barnes had rushed for 135 yards and Hunter had thrown for 115 yards as Cheltenham scored all four times it had the ball in the first half.
“As a line, we just had to come together and give it our best,” Carson said. “We told the team to trust us and put our all into everything.”
Unfortunately for the Panthers, they lost Nate Felix to an injury in the second quarter and Panthers coach Ryan Nase feared the 6-foot-3 junior might miss at least next week’s game. Already down two starters due to injury, it’s something Cheltenham will have to deal with going forward.
“They’re playing well the past two weeks but now the problem is we’re down two starting linemen and lose a third,” Nase said. “We’re playing a rotation of a guy who just moved to o-line two weeks ago and a ninth grader. Now we know that going into next week, so we’ll have time to prepare those guys.”
Carson said he’s tried to be there for the players filling in on the line to make sure they’re doing what they need to. The junior center said the fill-in players are talented and they’ve done a good job of paying attention at practice and implementing what the coaches have told them to do.
“We need trust from everybody, everybody’s hard work and their heart,” Carson said.
DOWN AND DISTANCE
Cheltenham’s defensive line had plenty of support on Friday night.
“Our linebackers, Sam Sykes, Jon-Marc Foreman and Zach Gaffin, they were a big part of all those defensive stops,” Edwards said. “I have to get them some props, they were a huge part of shutting it down in the first half.”
Nase was again disappointed in the number of penalties his team racked up, including a personal foul by Harris that led to the safety being ejected from the game in the third quarter and another flag that came at Nase’s expense.
Penalties have been a problem and now they’re becoming a punishment, one even the coach won’t excuse himself from. The Panthers were flagged eight times for 66 yards on Friday
“We put in a new rule that our Tuesday conditioning is based on how many penalties we had and since I lost my focus and had one too, I’d better bring my knee braces to run,” Nase said.
CHELTENHAM 7 17 0 6 – 30
QUAKERTOWN 0 0 6 6 – 12
Scoring Plays
1st Quarter
C – Jamir Barnes 4 run (Andrew Moreland) kick 6:02
2nd Quarter
C – Andrew Moreland 29 field goal 10:30
C – Adonis Hunter 40 pass to Nate Edwards (Moreland kick) 6:29
C – Sam Sykes 21 run (Moreland kick) 1:12
3rd Quarter
Q – Tyler Merwarth 3 run (two-point fail) 1:29
4th Quarter
C – Nate Edwards 37 interception return (kick block) 10:59
Q – Will Seitch 1 run (two-point fail) 2:39
Team Stats
C Q
First downs 15 14
Rushes-Yards 28-234 32-69
Passing 5-9-1-0 22-39-0-4
Passing Yards 115 234
Total Yards 349 303
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 1-0
Penalties-Yards 8-66 4-20
Individual Stats
Rushing: C – Jamir Barnes 17-159, Siddiq Williams 2-2, Adonis Hunter 3-55, Sam Sykes 3-21, Zach Gaffin 2-(-3); Q – Tyler Merwarth 14-34, Josh McGovern 12-48, Will Seitch 4-(-8), Tyler Woodman 2-(-5)
Passing: C – Hunter 5-9-1-0-115; Q – Seitch 22-39-0-4-234
Receiving: C – Williams 2-45, TJ Harris 1-10, Jon-Marc Foreman 1-20, Nate Edwards 1-40; Q – Ben Kave 6-111, Tim Garlick 4-30, Merwarth 5-51, Andre Faltz 3-31
Interceptions: C – TJ Harris 3, Nate Edwards
