FRANCONIA — Ryan Sadowski had a good idea what would get Souderton going Friday night.
The Souderton senior opened his season with a hat trick of touchdowns, all of them needed against a Haverford team looking to make an early season statement. It just worked out he was on the finishing end of the scoring plays, but Sadowski pointed out it was a combined effort.
Souderton made a few more plays on both sides of the ball, outlasting a game Fords team 21-17 to open the 2023 season.
“We should have come out a lot stronger than I think we did tonight,” the senior, who plays as a halfback and linebacker, said. “We could have flown around the ball a little better, we seemed tired for some reason, maybe not our best week of practice.”
Sadowski caught two touchdowns from sophomore Ben Walsh, who made his first varsity start, and rushed for another. Souderton’s defense accumulated four sacks, forced and recovered a fumble and had a game-sealing interception despite dealing with a few injuries during the game that tested the Indians’ depth.
Haverford was almost there play-for-play, with Fords quarterback Liam Taylor throwing for a score and rushing for another, Nate Shoemaker running hard and the offense converting a few big third or fourth down plays. The defense had its chances too, forcing three turnovers, but Haverford fell a couple conversions short of flipping the margin.
“Proud of our kids, we’ve got a fairly young group and our motto all camp has been that we want to be the most physical team in the league,” Fords coach Luke Dougherty said. “If we’re going to play a team like Souderton the first week, you know it’s going to be physical.”
Souderton started with the ball but didn’t have it long, an incomplete pass in the backfield eventually being ruled a fumble recovered by Haverford, giving the Fords a short field. The visitors turned that into a field goal then got the ball back again just two plays later when Nate Heinerichs picked off Walsh and returned it to the Indians’ 30-yard line.
A team effort up front on fourth down stonewalled Taylor on a keeper, turning the ball over on downs and costing Haverford a chance to take an early two-score lead.
“I thought when I woke up, we’ll either look really good or we’ll struggle being young and I thought we looked good, we just have to clean up some mistakes,” Dougherty said. “We’ve got to win a football game when we force three turnovers. The offense will clean it up and we’ll be back ready to go against (Conestoga) next week.”
Souderton finally got a drive going on its third possession and despite trailing on the scoreboard, veteran coach Ed Gallagher called it a win that his defense had held the Fords to just three points instead of two touchdowns.
“We looked excellent at times, then had some lapses and gave away some turnovers at critical times that gave them an opportunity,” Gallagher said. “You have to give them credit, they did a really good job executing on third down and we couldn’t get off the field defensively but we made enough plays to win.
“The defense played well, so overall I’m pleased with a lot of the things we did defensively and some of the things we did offensively.”
Gallagher mentioned senior Danny Dyches as a player to watch in the preseason and the wideout showed why early by connecting with Walsh on some nice grabs. Still, the hosts couldn’t get anything from it and stalled out on their third drive ending with a missed field goal.
Souderton’s defense then came through as James McCoy erupted into the backfield to disrupt a toss play and lineman Aiden Elliott recovered the fumble on the Fords’ 15.
Elliott, who also notched a sack later on, was a constant force up front even as Soudy’s defensive line rotation was whittled down with a few in-game knocks.
“I definitely feel like we put pressure on their offensive line and tired them out,” Elliott said. “I definitely think we were playing our hardest at the end. I think our group is very determined, we overcome adversity and we have a lot of great players who will step up when needed.”
Sadowski scored on the next play, a 15-yard pass from Walsh. The versatile senior, who lines up in the backfield of Souderton’s Wing-T offense but is far from just a back, also scored on a 35-yard run in the final minute of the first half after the Fords re-gained the lead on an 18-yard connection between Taylor and Heinerichs.
He called it a collective effort on offense, adding once the Indians got Walsh going, everything fell in behind him. Souderton is usually a run-heavy team, but Friday saw a near-even split between pass and run plays.
“I think we’re very good at communicating with each other and overall play in sync,” Elliott said. “There’s definitely room to grow and improve, I think we’ll do that because we know we could have played better tonight.”
The Fords were able to slow Dyches in the second half and Gallagher said he wanted to find ways to get the ball in the senior’s hands more. That did open things up elsewhere and on the first Souderton possession of the second half, that’s exactly what Sadowski saw and relayed to the coaches.
It just happened that play went his way, Walsh finding Sadowski over the middle with a nice pass in stride. The senior then pulled away from one defender and baited two others to take each other out as he waltzed in for the eventual game-winner.
“We saw all week in film they run a cover-three so we thought two seams would definitely do the trick and it sure did,” Sadowski said. “I told our coaches our passing formations were what would win us this game and that’s what happened.”
Souderton travels to Pennridge next week. The Fords gave Souderton a good run on Friday and both teams had the same idea of getting better from it
“This is a good game to get the ball rolling,” Sadowski said. “It will definitely humble us this next week in practice. This will be our worst performance of the season.”
SOUDERTON 0 14 7 0 – 21
HAVERFORD 3 7 7 0 – 17
First Quarter
H – Vincent Cunningham 27 field goal 5:37
Second Quarter
S – Ben Walsh 15 pass to Ryan Sadowski (Ryan Zuk kick) 10:17
H – Liam Taylor 18 pass to Keith Heinerichs (Cunningham kick) 2:30
S – Sadowski 35 run (Zuk kick) 47.2
Third Quarter
S – Walsh 58 pass to Sadowski (Zuk kick) 8:31
H – Taylor 1 run (Cunningham kick) 3:21
Team Stats
S H
First Downs 10 13
Rushes-Yards 16-59 49-115
Passing 11-15-2-1 5-10-1-1
Passing Yards 196 47
Total Yards 255 162
Fumbles-Lost 2-2 3-2
Penalties-Yards 5-70 2-15
Punts-Average 2-44.5 2-34.5
Individual Stats
Rushing
S:Ryan Sadowski 7-38, Michael McCormick 1-0, James McCoy 3-12, Ben Walsh 3-(-8), Danny Dyches 2-10, Joey Nase 1-7 ; H: Nate Shoemaker 18-39, Keith Heinerichs 4-15, Vincent Cunningham 3-(-6), Liam Taylor 18-38, Will Hulea 6-29
Passing
S: Ben Walsh 11-15-2-1-196; H – Liam Taylor 5-10-1-1-47
Receiving
S: Dyches 6-85, Grayson Largent 3-15, Chase Johnson 2-24, Sadowski 2-72 ; H: Owen Morris 3-21, Heinerichs 1-18, Cunningham 1-18
Interceptions
S: Timmy Meehan; H: Heinerichs
Sacks
S: Kahlil Williams, Joey Nase, Aiden Elliott, Tom Gonce; H – Alex Klee 2
