Abington waits out storms for win over Cheltenham

ABINGTON – The Abington High School Ghosts started the season with a tough loss to Northeast, but then won the next two games including last night’s game against local rival Cheltenham with a final score of 27-0.

The loss for the Panthers was the first of the season after starting the season with two wins, which is what Cheltenham had all of last year.

The game would stay scoreless with a little over nine minutes left in the second quarter until it was delayed for nearly two hours because of lightning in Abington.

After the storms cleared away and with both teams back on the field, the Ghosts exploded with a 37-yard touchdown pass from Tamir Berthau to Keith Hudoka for the first scoring play of the night.

Later with Cheltenham having the ball, Angelo Pearson made one of the biggest plays of the game by picking up a Panther fumble and took it down 65 yards for a touchdown to make the score 14-0.

Berthau wouldn’t stop there as he later had one passing touchdown in each of the second half quarters to set the final score 27-0.

Berthau was thrilled for his team especially with a shutout against a tough rival in Cheltenham.

“I feel really good about this win,” said Berthau. “All week we kept hearing that Cheltenham was going to beat us, so we used that as fuel to get this win tonight.”

Hudoka may have only got two catches receiving, but both were touchdown passes that gave Abington the win.

“I really don’t care about my performance,” said Hudoka. “I’m just really happy that we won as a team especially with all the distractions like the rain and thunder.”

“This is my last time facing Cheltenham,” added Hudoka. “We had a couple goals heading into today, now we just have to win Suburban One.”

Abington head coach Kevin Conlin was impressed with how his team performed against a 2-0 Cheltenham team.

“Cheltenham is a very tough and very good team,” said Conlin. “We just had to handle all the distractions like the lightning delay and with the weather being so hot all week, I told the boys that the teams that doesn’t focus on the distractions often wins the game.”

“Defense has been great all year,” added Conlin. “Sure they gave up a few long plays against Northeast, but they made great adjustments afterwards in the last few games.”

Cheltenham will look to bounce back at home next week when it takes on Norristown on Friday, September 14 at 7:00 p.m.

Abington will look to win its third straight game as it will travel to Bensalem High School on Friday, September 14 with kickoff scheduled for 7:00 p.m.

Abington 27, Cheltenham 0

C  0 0  0 0 -0

A  0 7 13 7  -27

A – Berthau 37-yard pass to Hudoka (Allen kick)

A – Pearson 65-yard fumble recovery (Allen kick)

A – Berthau 20-yard pass to Hudoka (2-pt conversion failed)

A – Berthau 12-yard pass to Drummond (Allen kick)

C A

First downs 8 12

Passing yards 89 69

Rushing yards 54 238

Total yards 143 307

Passing 6-27 4-10

Penalties 7-75 9-100

Fumbles lost 2 1

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS:

RUSHING: Abington: Hudoka: 8-80; Berthau 11-64; Byrd 8-44; Grimaldi 3-33; Wesh 10-16; Macione 3-1. Cheltenham: Sykes 4-32; Barnes 7-29; Biddle-Peete 2-6; Foreman 1-2; Hunter 4-(-15).

PASSING: Abington: Berthau 4-9, 69 yds, 3 TD; Hudoka 0-1. Cheltenham: Hunter 6-27, 89 yds.

RECEIVING: Abington: Hudoka 2-57, 2 TD; Drummond 2-12, 1 TD. Cheltenham: Barnes 2-25; Banks 1-20; McKinnie 1-20; Edwards 1-12; Williams 1-12.