Football Preview: With Bertoline at controls, Marple Newtown relishes ‘new challenge’
NEWTOWN SQUARE >> The desire became a vision, the vision became a dream and, last season, the dream became a reality for the Marple Newtown football program.
A wait for a 16-ply senior class to develop proved worthwhile, the Tigers going 9-4 overall and advancing to the second round of the District 1 Class 5A tournament, and that was enough to provoke a pair of conflicting thoughts.
The first: That was satisfying.
The next: The process will have to begin anew.
“I love it,” coach Chris Gicking said. “It’s a new challenge every year.”
So it was during a training camp peopled by just eight returning starters that Marple Newtown would begin the next rise toward the money side of the Central League standings. Fortunately for Gicking, that climb would be made easier by some sturdy ladder rungs, including returning quarterback Dave Bertoline, who will be protected by, among others, mega-time right-tackle college prospect Andrew Kirlin.
“Having the quarterback back, of course, is big,” said Gicking, among the most accomplished at the position in Delaware County history. “He’s gotten a lot better. Last year, as a sophomore, he was a starter. For people who haven’t seen him in a while, he’s gotten a lot bigger and a lot stronger.”
At the crossroad the Tigers are about to face, the 6-1, 185-pound Bertoline is perfect for the challenge. As a sophomore, he threw for 1,457 yards and 14 touchdowns for a playoff team, and he is ideally situated to see the rebuilding through by next season.
Even with the graduation of first-team All-Delco all-purpose offensive force Charlie Box, Bertoline will have the requisite experience to help guide a by-committee running back crowd, including sophomores Brian Box and Paul Defruscio, junior Louie DiLuzio and freshman Brett Wolski.
“Last year, I learned a lot about being a leader, taking leadership in the huddle, on the sidelines, at practice,” Bertoline said. “The seniors last year, they took charge. But now if someone is fooling around in the locker room or something, you just have to tell them to stop.”
Senior Bryan Bogan, junior Joe Yukenavitch and junior Ty Can will be among the options in the passing lanes, and in the 6-6, 300-pound Kirlin, Bertoline should have plenty of time to look around.
Already being oogled by Penn State, Oklahoma, Rutgers, Temple and Delaware, among others, Kirlin will be high among the must-watch underclassmen in the state.
“He’s getting a lot of attention,” Gicking said of superior-sized junior lineman. “And he didn’t go to any camps. If he’d have gone to camps, he’d be getting even more.”
The plan being for Kirlin to continue to develop as a force at right tackle, Gicking and his coaching staff will have a difficult time resisting jamming him on the defensive line, too, as that entire defensive line was hit by graduation. Still, Defruscio and Can return to the secondary. Senior nose guard Jimmy Hally will help solidify the defensive line. Junior Jake McGowan also has some defensive line experience.
With seven field goals and 25 successful PATs last season, Can should make critical special-teams contributions. Also, linebacker and wide receiver Gavin Boyce, two-way lineman Gavin Cooney, linebacker Matt DeAngelo, wide receiver and defensive back Nate Dhunjisha, linemen A.J. Diianni and Ben Fonseca, receivers Sonny Hy and Jack Hamson, and linebackers Owen McGovern and Josh Tiger-Wesley will provide welcome upper-class attributes.
“I think we’re going to be pretty good this year,” Kirlin said. “We are very young and have a lot of spots to fill, but that opens spots for a lot of guys and they are working hard for it. We had a good year last year. We just have to take what the seniors taught us last year and bring it to this team now.”
