Football: Stingy second half has Upper Darby looking up despite loss to Conestoga

TREDYFFRIN — The differences at halftime Friday night were smaller, Lavar Jackson and his Upper Darby teammates agreed, than the 20-point spread on the scoreboard indicated.

Flip a fourth-down execution in the Royals’ favor here, shut down a Conestoga fourth down there, and maybe the conversation at the break is a little different. Maybe a second half that the Royals controlled would’ve gone a little further toward tipping the balance.

But the ruthless execution of Conestoga in a six-minute span of the second quarter was all the Pioneers needed to claim a 20-7 Central League win.

The Pioneers scored on consecutive plays early in the second quarter, around a fumbled kick return by Upper Darby, then a second 33-yard scoring connection between Peter Costigan and Brody Eaton to lead 20-0 with 4:56 left in the first half.

That was enough for the defense in the second half, even as Upper Darby (2-4, 2-2 Central) shifted the game to its terms.

“For the first half, we were definitely focusing on trying to get our offense flowing,” Jackson said. “The second half, we made some adjustments to the plays we were running. We got a little bit going, we got our chunk plays, but we couldn’t wrap it up in the end. It’s the little things we have to fix up.”

Chief among those little things: Fourth-down execution. Conestoga scored two touchdowns on fourth down. First, Costigan ran option on fourth-and-three at the 27, broke the first line of contain and had no one between him and the end zone to get the Pioneers on the board at 10:32 of the second.

When Drew Merschel, the defensive tackle on kick coverage, recovered a fumble at the 33, Costigan took one play to cash in. He hit Eaton on a slip screen for the big wide receiver to elude a tackler and make it two scores in 14 seconds.

“He’s not your average quarterback,” Eaton said of his signal-caller. “He’s extremely athletic, so he can do anything he wants at any time. You’ve got to expect he’s going to make plays out of nowhere.”

That came to fruition on the next drive, again on fourth down. Costigan was hit as he released a prayer, spying Eaton running deep past his defender just hoping to get open. He reached up, caught the ball in stride and waltzed into the end zone for a three-score edge.

“It wasn’t even my route,” said Eaton, whose touchdowns were his only catches. “I saw him scramble out, and I thought, find green grass, get open and make a play.”

Contrast that to Upper Darby, which was stopped on fourth-and-five midway through the second at the Conestoga 44. But the more devastating one came in the final minute of the first half, quarterback Montez Ellis wrapped up for a loss on fourth-and-one at the 8 by Charlie Newhall.

Injury to insult, Ellis’s ankle got rolled up on the play, though he hobbled through the second half.

“When you take a drive all the way down the field and going into halftime and you just need that one yard, definitely your heart sinks right there,” Jackson said. “But nothing we can do about it but fix what we didn’t block.”

A week ago, faced with a similar situation, Upper Darby hung its heads. The result was a 34-0 loss to Cheltenham. Friday, the Royals didn’t, as defensive tackle Kaleel McLaughlin urged at halftime. It paid off on the first series of the third, McLaughlin stripping Costigan on a sack for Ethan Douglas to recover.

Bernard would cash it in, dragging a pile into the end zone for a five-yard score, set up by Ellis’ 19-yard dash. The defense provided space for a comeback, forcing two punts and Jason Bateman stuffing Costigan (6-10 for 107 yards) on a fourth-and-1. After allowing 138 yards in the first half, Upper Darby held Conestoga (5-1, 4-2) to 66 after the break.

“That’s a crazy step up for the future, in my opinion,” McLaughlin said. “They’re 5-1, and you don’t see a lot of teams stopping them like that.”

But Upper Darby couldn’t get any closer, as Ellis (5-12 for 35 yards, 17 carries for 71) was picked off twice, by Bryce Beltrante and the icer by Jared Friend in the fourth. For a Conestoga team that has won three one-point games, pulling out a close one felt familiar.

“We are a very collected team at all times,” Eaton said. “Our main focus is to stay focused, and focus on the game and not focus on talking to the other team.”