Spring-Ford tunes up for playoffs with win over Norristown
ROYERSFORD >> Spring-Ford no longer had any hopes of getting into the Pioneer Athletic Conference football championship game this season coming into Saturday’s Liberty Division contest against Norristown.
But the Rams still had a list of things to accomplish … such as minimize mistakes, execute their plays and work on their timing. And obviously. get other win to possibly help their seeding in the upcoming District 1-6A playoffs.
All of those tasks were accomplished in a 49-0 win on Homecoming Day at Coach McNelly Stadium.
Matt Zollers completed all nine of his pass attempts in the first half for 158 yards and three touchdowns and Will Fish ran for 59 yards and a score as the Rams (4-1 PAC Liberty, 6-3 overall) ran out to a 49-0 lead at the half. Brendan Farrell passed for 117 yards for the Eagles (0-5, 2-7), with Marquis Holmes catching three passes for 71 yards.
“Our goal today was to minimize mistakes and execute on both sides of the ball,” said Spring-Ford coach Chad Brubaker. “That was our goal. We did it well.”
As far as the minimizing of mistakes went, the Rams had no penalties and no turnovers. And they were unstoppable on offense in the first half, scoring touchdowns on their first six drives, with a blocked punt recovery in the end zone for another score besides.
Spring-Ford drove 34 yards on its first possession, with Fish rumbling the last 20 yards for the score. Then Belal Abdelrahman intercepted a pass for the Rams and Zollers hit him with a 45-yard touchdown strike on the next play.
Fish completed a 50-yard drive with a 5-yard run, Mike Bendowski recovered a blocked punt in the end zone, Luke Pajovich caught a 3-yard TD pass, Zach Zollers caught an 18-yard scoring pass and Mosiah Rhodes ran eight yards for a TD to make it 49-0 at the half.
Sophomore quarterback Matt Zollers had all the time he needed to spot his receivers and delivery an accurate pass.
“The offensive line has been doing a great job all season,” he said. “They’ve been stepping it up a lot lately and continue to get better. I’ve been trying to fix my timing on routes lately. I’ve been late and missing my receivers.”
Fish also benefited from the line’s play as he averaged 6.6 yards on his nine carries.
“They were making a lot of nice blocks,” he said. “I was just following them. We’re just trying to minimize mistakes. Just trying to get better at what we do.”
Many of Norristown’s 144 total yards came on long pass plays as Farrell found Holmes for completions of 40 and 26 yards and hit Bocar Dieng with a 35-yarder.
“We were looking to try to establish our identity in this game by running the ball a little bit more,” said Norristown coach Joe Milligan. “We’ve got most of our starting running backs back from last week. We’re running full tilt.”
But it was difficult for the Eagles to make much progress against the tough Ram defense as they gained only 25 yards on 18 carries.
“They’re definitely a pretty good program, especially this time of year,” said Milligan. “A well-oiled machine.”
Both teams will wrap up the regular season next week with PAC crossover games.
And the Rams will continue to try to tune up their game and advance in the district rankings. They are currently ranked 11th, with the top 16 teams going to the playoffs.
“Obviously, we wanted to be playing in that championship game,” said Fish. “We still knew we were going to the district playoffs and this was a big game for seeding.”
“We’ve got to just keep getting better for the playoffs,” said Brubaker. “We want to go into the playoffs firing on all cylinders.”
Spring-Ford 49, Norristown 0
Norristown 0 0 0 0 – 0
Spring-Ford 28 21 0 0 – 49
SCORING
First quarter
SF-Fish 20 run (Fields kick)
SF-Abdelrahman 45 pass from M Zollers (Fields kick)
SF-Fish 5 run (Fields kick)
SF-Bendowski Blocked punt recovery in end zone (Fields kick)
Second quarter
SF-Pajovich 3 pass from M Zollers (Fields kick)
SF-Z Zollers 18 pass from M Zollers (Fields kick)
SF-Rhodes 8 run (Fields kick)
TEAM STATISTICS
NT SF
First downs 4 16
Rushing yards 25 120
Passing yards 119 157
Total yards 144 277
Passes C-A-I 10-23-2 10-11-0
Fumbles-Lost 1-0 0-0
Penalties-Yards 7-52 0-0
Punts-Avg. 2-(-1 ) 2-24.5
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing
Norristown: Griffin 10-26; Farrell 5-0; Holmes 2-0; Carr 1-(-1)
Spring-Ford: Fish 9-59, 1 TD; Rhodes 8-27, 1 TD; Hassis 3-21; Shaner 1-9; Welch 5-3; Bendowski 2-3; Freed 2-(-2)
Passing
Norristown: Farrell 9-21-117, 1 INT; Miller 1-2-2, 1 INT
Spring-Ford: M Zollers 9-9-158, 3 TD’s; Freed 1-2-(-1)
Receiving
Norristown: Holmes 3-71; Ferrell 2-6; Carr 2-3; Dieng 1-35; Pratt 1-3; Griffin 1-1
Spring-Ford: Abdelrahman 2-54, 1 TD; Pajovich 2-3, 1 TD; Scott 1-50; Z Zollers 1-18, 1 TD; Kerchner 1-17; Folino 1-8; Bendowski 1-8; Blanken 1-(-1)
Interceptions: Spring-Ford-Abdelrahman, Lewis
Sacks: None
