Crazy second quarter powers Coatesville past Souderton, 49-18

CALN – What happened in the second quarter at Coatesville was a shot over the bow to all of the 6A teams still alive in the District 1 football playoffs.

The seventh-seeded Red Raiders may have dropped a couple regular season games, but Coatesville is still a major threat who is not going to surrender its status as the two-time defending champs without a fight. A 49-point outburst in a single quarter is the kind of statement that is loud and clear and may still be reverberating.

“I don’t ever remember scoring that many points in a quarter,” said Ricky Ortega, the Raiders’ four-year starting quarterback. “That was crazy.”

It was, in fact, even more impressive when you consider that Coatesville actually scored seven touchdowns in a stunning 8-minute, 45-second span, en route to a 49-18 triumph over visiting Souderton in round one of districts.

“Even in the past couple years against teams that struggle in our conference, we’ve never really done that,” said Coatesville head coach Matt Ortega. “It was like an explosion.”

It’s hard to imagine, but the Raiders go off to a sluggish start before the incendiary response. A week after dropping a bitter four-point decision to Downingtown East, Coatesville improves to 8-2 overall and moves on to the District 1 6A Quarterfinals to face the (2) Central Bucks West-(15) Ridley winner, which will be decided on Saturday.

The tenth-seeded Indians end their season with an 8-3 mark.

“Coatesville is a really good football team and we knew that coming in,” said Souderton head coach Ed Gallagher. “Once it got rolling, it rolled down hill very quick.

“It seemed like they scored 28 or 35 in the matter of four or five minutes. It just kind of snowballed. I was trying to run some safe plays and all of the sudden (Coatesville) is going the other way.”

After the first quarter, the Indians were in front 7-0 and thinking upset. And then the Raiders unleashed an offensive detonation that should register on the District 1 Richter scale. Star wideout Dapree Bryant found the end zone four times in the quarter alone.  

“We lost last week, so we came in with a chip on our shoulder and we were thinking, ‘we can’t lose this week,’” said junior receiver Abdul-Sabur Stewart.

It started with a 90-yard scoring march, capped by a 1-yard Ortega keeper on fourth down. Bryant then accounted for 55 yards to set up his first score to put Coatesville ahead for good.

A 51-yard pass from Ortega to Stewart led to another Bryant TD run. And then Souderton turned it over on two consecutive plays, which led to 14 more points. The first was a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, which Stewart converted into an 11-yard scoring strike. Moments later, senior defender Shamaur Hall picked up a loose ball and went 10 yards the other way to make it 35-7.

Bryant added another short TD run late in the second, and then he intercepted a pass by Souderton’s Andrew Vince, and then hauled in a 66-yard pass from Ortega on the next play.

“We are very capable of doing something like that, but sometimes we have mental errors,” Stewart said. “I came out with a fumble (in the first quarter) and I had to make up for it.”

Ricky Ortega had 340 yards passing and Stewart hauled in seven receptions for a career-high 180 yards – and neither played in the second half. And the surge wasn’t just the offense. The Raiders defense forced two three-and-outs and a turnover in the quarter.

“The two straight turnovers really killed us,” Gallagher said. “Against a team like (Coatesville), they are going to take advantage of it, and they did.”

The Indians opened the scoring midway through the first period when Vince rolled right and tossed it left to Jalen White, who raced 40-yards for the score. Souderton also got a 26-yard field goal from William Leyland on the final play of the first half.

“We were a little worried early because we came out slow. But once we caught fire, we just took off,” Matt Ortega said.

“We came out and executed well on both sides of the ball,” Gallagher added. “It was awesome getting off to that start to show we can play at this level. But then, unfortunately, it got away from us real quick.”

In addition to the four scores, Bryant grabbed six catches for 129 yards, and added 42 more on the ground. Just like all of the Coatesville starters, he only played in the first half. The Raiders amassed five quarterback sacks and limited the Indians to 234 yards of total offense.

“We felt comfortable heading in because compared to preparing for all of the formations from (Downingtown) East and West, (Souderton was) a lot more basic so our kids grasped the concepts,” Matt Ortega explained.

Runner Nick Guthre delivered a late 61-yard touchdown for Souderton and finished with 117 yards on the ground.

“We are the two-time defending champs, and we’re going for a third,” said Ricky Ortega, who completed 17 of 21 pass attempts. “So if anybody wants (the district title), they will have to come through us.”