New jersey for Schwartz, but same old Garnet Valley in win

CONCORD — Lance Schwartz didn’t wear his usual No. 62 against Strath Haven Friday night.

The 6-3, 285-pound Garnet Valley offensive lineman grew out of the jersey.

“He couldn’t fit into it, so he was the one wearing No. 77,” Jaguars coach Mike Ricci said.

Schwartz laughed at the suggestion that he was hitting the weights too hard … or maybe spending extra time in the cafeteria during lunch break.

“Probably both,” he said.

Schwartz was in the middle of a dominating offensive performance by the Jaguars, who clinched a share of the Central League championship with a 49-14 victory.

This was textbook Garnet Valley football. The Jags ran the ball 52 times for 490 yards and scored on all seven of their possessions. There was one drive that started with eight seconds left in the first half, and another with the sole purpose was to run out the clock in the fourth quarter.

After last week’s back-and-forth slugfest with Upper Darby, which fell a two-point conversion short of a stunning overtime win for the Royals, the Jags had to play better against a Strath Haven (7-2, 6-2) team that had eyes on spoiling the Jags’ senior night festivities while keeping its Central League title hopes alive.

“The preparation this week was phenomenal. We have the best scout team out there, no doubt about it, and they help us prepare,” Schwartz said. “We knew Strath Haven was good and we had to be at our best. We played as best as we can and the rest is history.”

Haven’s defense has stymied offenses with their tough and athletic collection of linebackers. Leading that unit are seniors John Prochniak and John Wilson.

Unfortunately for the Panthers, they were up against a team that breeds big and nasty offensive linemen who aren’t afraid to run the football straight ahead. Six Garnet Valley players accrued 40 or more yards on the ground.

Jake Morin ran for 78 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. Quarterback Ryan Gallagher had a pair of rushing scores. Greg Reynolds, Reece Malek and Brian Bradley each had one.

“We really wanted to emphasize running the ball down their throat, making sure they’re getting winded and pushing them back,” Schwartz said. “It’s our style of football. We want to out-compete everybody out there and be the strongest … and I feel like we’ve done that.”

Reynolds led all Garnet Valley rushers with 174 yards on 14 carries.

It doesn’t matter who is getting the handoffs, the Jags are the ultimate running back-by-committee team in Delco. In most years the Jags have had one player emerge as the go-to guy, but this year’s team has a never-ending assembly line of rushers who can make a big play. Jake Morin, Sam Morin, Reynolds and Gallagher have all run for 400 or more yards this season.

“We don’t really care who gets the ball because we all trust each other,” Reynolds said. “If we have one guy go down, we have another guy step up. …If one guy gets tired, we give the ball to the next guy and we trust him to do the job.”

Jake Morin capped off an eight-play, 66-yard yard opening drive with a one-yard scoring run. Strath Haven’s offense answered with an eight-play scoring drive. Big runs by Matt Shuler and Ibo Pio set up a John Prochniak one-yard touchdown.

The Jags went right back to work. They used nearly nine minutes of clock to drive the ball down field in 18 plays. Jake Morin’s seven-yard jaunt made it 14-7. After a Haven three-and-out, Reynolds sprinted 72 yards to the end zone. Gallagher ran for a touchdown later in the quarter to give GV a 28-7 lead.

Prochniak scored his second of three touchdowns with 14 seconds left to cut the deficit to 28-14 at halftime. GV scored 21 straight points in the third quarter to trigger the running clock.

Prochniak, who entered the night as the leading rusher in Delco (852 yards), was held to 44 yards on six carries. Pio (69 yards) and Shuler (55) had success in spurts for the Panthers, who amassed 176 yards on 38 carries.

Junior quarterback Jack Ryder was 5-for-13 through the air for 75 yards. Jaris Adams had three catches for 46 yards.

The Jaguars won at least a share of the Central League title for the sixth time since joining the conference in 2008. A win at Ridley next week would guarantee the championship outright and a home game in the first round of the District 1 Class 6A tournament.

“It says a lot about our seniors,” Ricci said. “We lost pretty much everyone from last year’s team, we only had a couple of returning starters, and this group of seniors stepped up and I couldn’t be more proud.”