St. Joseph’s Prep gets back on track, races past La Salle

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Anthony Leneghan and his teammates on the St. Joseph’s Prep football team spent two weeks practicing angry.

After losing to Florida’s IMG Academy, then having to sit through a bye week before Saturday’s meeting with archrival La Salle, the Prep didn’t need any extra motivation to take each rep seriously. Once they won the coin toss and opted to take the ball, the Hawks were ready to take out that frustration.

The Prep authored a nearly flawless first half as they raced past the Explorers 44-13 at Wissahickon to hand La Salle its first loss of the season.

“We prepare the same every week the same but the thing was, we were a little hungier because we came off a loss,” Leneghan, a senior defensive lineman, said. “We’re not used to losing on this team, the standard is a state championship and going undefeated. We have two losses to great teams but we learned this year, we’re hungrier when we lose.”

McCord threw three first half touchdowns as St. Joe’s Prep (2-2, 1-0 PCL Red scored on all five of its first half possessions while the defense stopped La Salle every time it had the ball. The junior quarterback, who has verbally committed to Ohio State, threw for 212 yard while completing 11-of-16 passes.

Taking the ball to start the game was deliberate and McCord, who was as eager as anyone to get back on the field, led the Hawks right down for a touchdown when senior running back Kolbe Burrell went in from eight yards out.

“We love getting the ball first because as an offense, we take pride in taking the ball down, scoring and making a statement early on in the game,” McCord said. “I don’t like bye weeks in general, but especially losing the game to go into the bye week, we were all hungry to get out here. I thought we had a good week of practice and prepared well.”

La Salle (4-1, 0-1) picked up 27 yards on its first three plays, then struggled to get much else going the rest of the first half. The Prep’s defensive line and linebackers did well to stop the Explorers running game at the point of attack and forced a number of third-and-long situations.

Sophomore running back Sam Brown, who’s been off to a huge start this season, wasn’t able to break one of his patented big plays as the La Salle offense was quieted.

“We just have to prepare for next week, we started out slow and tried picking it up late but there wasn’t much we could do,” Brown said. “We just have to start out new next week and work toward getting a win.”

Leneghan, a 6-foot-2, 255-pound senior, and his mates on the defensive line were just solid. The end said it was nothing more than them going out and just doing their job and by doing that, they let the rest of the defense do its job.

Practicing against the Prep’s mammoth offensive line certainly helps and it also benefits the offense as McCord said his defensive front throws so many different looks at him during the week, he isn’t fazed when game day rolls around. Still, the Hawks defenders can’t just show up and Leneghan credited the coaching staff for getting them well-prepared for Saturday night.

“(La Salle) always likes to switch things up against us, so we did prepare for everything,” Leneghan said. “We looked at everything they’d ever used the last three years and we prepared well enough because we stopped them.”

Burrell carried the ball 14 times for 125 yards and scored the Prep’s first two touchdowns. After the defense forced a three-and-out, McCord had a bomb to Marvin Harrison Jr called back on a penalty, so undaunted, he hit the junior wideout for a 37-yard gain on fourth down then capped the drive with a 15-yard screen pass to Harrison Jr.

After the defense had gotten a stop, the offense wasn’t going to settle for anything less than a score. McCord said the offense and defense fed off each other all game but they also didn’t want their opposite to claim a better performance.

“It’s a friendly competition so it was a lot of fun playing tonight,” McCord said. “I think we’re finally back on track and as a team we know who we are and who we can be but there’s still a lot of room for improvement. That’s the best part about it, for as well as we played and what the scoreboard says, there’s still a lot of room to get better.”

McCord also added a 10-yard score to Anthony Wrightly and a 15-yard touchdown to Sahmir Hagans in the second quarter as the Prep took a 35-0 lead at halftime. The quarterback was also sacked just once and credited his offensive linemen for communicating well and adjusting to the different looks the La Salle front showed them.

La Salle scored on its second drive after halftime, with Brown punching one in from two yards out and added a second touchdown with the backups in when Gavin Daly hit Mao Howell on a 38-yard catch-and-run score.

The Explorers will host Father Judge for homecoming next week at Upper Dublin and before that, use the next week to reset. There’s a chance to see the Prep again in the PCL 6A title game but Brown said the focus has to be on Judge before anything else.

“It was frustrating but I know I have a really good offensive line and we’re overall a good team,” Brown said. “We started out slow today but we’re going to come back strong. We’ll come back Monday and work hard in practice; next week is a new week and a new start.”

Now four games in, after a daunting opening schedule against two nationally ranked powerhouses and Saturday’s game with their biggest rival, the Prep has a better idea what type of team it is. They don’t like to lose, but their two setbacks taught them a lot of lessons they applied on Saturday.

“We learned the little things are important to us and we have to do the little things to beat teams that have a lot of talent like that,” Leneghan said. “We’re a talented team and when you play another talented team, the little things matter and everything matters. We get one night, then it’s a whole new week to prepare for.”

ST JOE’S PREP 14 21 3 6 – 44

LA SALLE 0 0 0 13 – 13

Scoring Plays

1^st Quarter

SJP – Kolbe Burrell 8 run (Antonio Chadha kick) 10:39

SJP – Burrell 11 run (Chadha kick) 3:20

2^nd Quarter

SJP – Kyle McCord 15 pass to Marvin Harrison Jr (Chadha kick) 11:45

SJP – McCord 10 pass to Anthony Rightly (Chadha kick) 2:49

SJP – McCord 15 pass to Sahmir Hagans (Chadha kick) 18.6

3^rd Quarter

SJP – Chadha 25 field goal 47.5

4^th Quarter

L – Sam Brown 2 run (Jacob Gandolfo kick) 6:43

L – Gavin Daly 38 pass to Mao Howell (kick miss) 1:19

SJP – Josh Barlow 80 run (kick fail) 1:00

Team Stats

SJP L

First downs 16 13

Rushes-Yards 33-255 27-117

Passing 11-16-3-0 10-18-1-0

Passing Yards 212 103

Total Offense 467 220

Fumbles-Lost 1-0 1-0

Penalties-Yards 8-61 4-31

Individual Stats

Rushing: SJP – Kolbe Burrell 14-125, Josh Barlow 7-104, Bryheem Barr 7-23, Kyle McCord 5-3; L – Jalen DeVose 2-22, Sam Brown 7-6, Brad Vespe 3-8, EJ Wentz 1-7, Jack Machita 4-26, Timothy Mehlman 3-29, Mao Howell 4-8, Gavin Daly 3-11

Passing: SJP – Kyle McCord 11-16-3-0-212; L – Jack Machita 9-17-0-0-65, Gavin Daly 1-1-1-0-38

Receiving: SJP – Sahmir Hagans 3-49, Marvin Harrison Jr 3-57, Malik Cooper 4-45, Daniel Stevenson 1-51, Anthony Rightly 1-10; L – Rob Tatum 1-8, Sam Brown 6-33, Liam Kennedy 2-24, Mao Howell 1-38