Fant, Episcopal Academy show improvement in routing Penn Charter

NEWTOWN SQUARE — With minimal time to prepare for the Inter-Ac League season, Episcopal Academy looked every bit like a team playing its first game last week.

The Churchmen’s home loss to Springside Chestnut Hill Academy included the usual assortment of mental mistakes and poor execution. At times junior Jake Fant, tasked with replacing the league’s MVP at quarterback, resembled a wet-behind-the-ears varsity player figuring it out on the fly. Not helping matters was the fact that the Churchmen were starting four new offensive linemen.

“It was about learning being accountable to each other, correcting the things you need to work on. And, you know, having a growth mindset like everybody’s prepared to learn from what happened last week. It wasn’t our best game,” said coach Todd Fairlie, who guided the Churchmen to the Inter-Ac championship in 2019. “Today, this was a really good team effort. The seniors set the tone early with great play and our quarterback bounced back with a hell of a game.”

Fant was excellent in Saturday’s 38-9 victory over Penn Charter. The 6-2, 185-pound junior went 12-for-16 through the air for 161 yards and a touchdown. He also ran to the end zone three times and managed the offense with complete confidence.

“Last week was definitely an eye opener, being a varsity a quarterback now,” Fant said. “But I think I got all of my first start jitters out and bounced back this week, and the game plan from our coaches was so good. This week I felt a lot more comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Fairlie’s faith in his young QB never wavered. He knew he had to devise a game plan that accentuated the talents of his skill players, including running backs Billy Adams and Dylan DiBeneditto and wide receiver Bryce Cooper, all of whom played key roles in aiding Fant and the Churchmen’s offensive production Saturday.

“You live and learn and lean on your leadership,” Fairlie said. “Without the scrimmages and stuff … we had to say, OK, let’s get back to our football and we have some great players that we wanted to make sure they made the difference in the game, to have them put their footprint on it. We probably didn’t do that last week. With no live reps, you really don’t know what a quarterback does well … so I think we were able to work with Jake this week and he was really honest about it.

“He was so coachable and he was just so honest about what he saw, what he was thinking last week so we could build something that fit him this week and he did a nice job. And you can see, not even watching the film, there’s a lot of area for improvement, but we were excited about his bounce back, that was awesome. And I also think when you surround kids in great cultures where they’re supportive and they’re loved by their teammates, they can trust each other and that makes a big difference, too. You know, making mistakes are going to happen, but we’re in this together, and we’re with you and I think that speaks a lot to the leadership and the kids on the team.”

One of those leaders is Adams, who was a workhorse Saturday. He put the finishing touches on a lopsided win with a 15-yard scoring scamper in the fourth quarter. The fleet-footed senior amassed 92 yards on 17 carries.

“Last week we had a lot of key injuries, so we had to get our depth ready to go this week,” Adams said. “This week they did a great job, they really stepped up on some big plays today. We relied on our starters last week, but this week we really worked on relying on our team as a whole.”

On the other side was a defense that hounded Penn Charter quarterback Colin Schumm, who completed only 4 of 18 passing attempts for 94 yards and an interception. The Churchmen pressured the backfield early and often, buoyed by Adams and DiBeneditto at linebacker, and lineman Max Strid. Penn Charter, which played like a team that making its season debut, fumbled 11 times and turned the ball over three on three occasions. EA’s defense limited the Penn Charter offense to 160 yards.

“We knew early that we wanted to get after (Schumm), like right off the jump. That’s pretty much it,” Strid said. “We graduated our MVP quarterback (Maurcus McDaniel) last year and we knew we were going to be banged up on offense today. So on defense we just set the tone early, got after the QB and then let the offense do its thing.”

Fant and the EA offense struck for three first-quarter touchdowns. Fant had a pair of option runs go for scores and also connected with DiBeneditto on a five-yard touchdown pass. Fant found the end zone for the third time on a 12-yard run in the second quarter.

Despite the offensive line’s inexperience, it was vastly improved in Game 2 of a four-game season. James Hoogstraten and Victor Coleman had a big day in the trenches.

“It was a big changeover from last year, only returning one starter,” Fairlie said of the line. “We didn’t lean on them last week like we should have. We should have trusted that they would get it right. We’re a dominant team up front, that’s who we are and maybe we had an identity crisis last week, but we’re back.”

Episcopal has a bye next week before playing archrival Haverford School on  Nov. 21.