Defense takes a stand as Academy Park rolls

UPPER CHICHESTER >> The Academy Park Knights pitched another shutout in Saturday’s 24-0 victory over Chichester. They gave up just 37 yards of total offense. They yielded just six first downs to the Eagles. They compiled eight sacks.

It was no surprise — this group has been doing it all year. They’ve given up 33 points this season and a mere 14 since Week 1. This is their fourth shutout in their last six games, but those kinds of things don’t seem to matter to this team.

“We don’t pay attention until someone tell us,” lineman Togba Porte said. “We just don’t want them to score.”

The Knights seem to have that part of the game down. The win sent them to 7-0, 2-0 in Del Val play. They did it without much cohesion or stability on offense — well, until Jeremy Dembry got his hands on the ball, that is.

A linebacker by trade, Dembry’s 33-yard run late in the first half sparked the offense and moved the chains for the first time for the Knights. He later scored on a 5e-yard run, making it 8-0 with 29 seconds left before halftime. That’s all his team needed.

“He’s a special player,” Academy Park coach Jason Vosheski said.

Jermaine Wesley’s 11-yard run early in the fourth quarter and Dembry’s 61-yard spurt midway through the period served as insurance. The defense didn’t need it. They were on the field, though, constantly, because of an offense that couldn’t hold onto the football (five fumbles, two lost) and a passing game that garnered just three yards.

Chichester (3-3, 0-2) challenged the visitors a few times — notably getting inside the 10-yard line in the second quarter and late in the fourth quarter — but the Knights stepped up each time. That final effort, which wasn’t really going to affect the outcome of the game, ended with Dembry doing his best Fletcher Cox impression.

Lined up at defensive tackle, he tore across the line, sacked Chichester quarterback Clarence Bowens, stripped him on his way down, then corralled the football for the fumble recovery.

“Yeah, we gotta keep this top defense in the state going,” Dembry said. “I just play where they put me.”
He had 171 rushing yards on a mere nine carries. His team had 287 total yards. The shutout was nice, the defense superb. The offense? Well, Vosheski wasn’t pleased.

“We didn’t show up at all,” he said. “Hats off to Chi, they took it to us.”

The lack of possession, the constant short fields and the pressure to keep the zero on the scoreboard did not get to the Knights. It elevated them.

The defense seemed to enjoy it.

“At the end of the day, that’s our job,” linebacker Terrel Lee said. “Play defense.”

Right now, Academy Park is doing that better than anyone else in Delaware County. With its three toughest league games coming up — and a potential league title contest looming against Interboro in the season’s final week — Vosheski knows things need to get better offensively.

However, he’ll always have that defense.

“Our defense is playing lights out,” he said. “They’re big, fast and aggressive.”