Football: Interboro’s Abu Kamara keeps on going and going against PJP

GLENOLDEN — Abu Kamara started the festivities Friday night at South Avenue Athletic Complex by carrying the Interboro flag in leading his team out of the locker room. He ended it by carrying a Gatorade cooler 30 yards to dump over his head coach, Dennis Lux.

In between, in a District 1 Class 4A final against Pope John Paul II, he carried just about everything else.

Just rattle off the numbers: 28 carries, 257 yards, 4 rushing touchdowns.

Plus three interceptions, one returned 62 yards for a fifth score.

Add it all up and you get a 38-14 win over the Panthers, the top-seeded Bucs clinching the championship and a spot in the PIAA tournament.

“He’s an absolutely special player,” Lux said. “He can do absolutely anything. … He has everything, and he’s a winner. And he’s a great person.”

Oh, and along the way, Kamara set both the Delaware County single-season rushing yardage and scoring records. His five TDs give him 39, passing Isaiah Bruce of Upper Darby, who scored 37 in 2015. He has 2,649 rushing yards, passing by last year’s total set by Ridley’s Tahir Mills (2,519).

And for all those yards and touchdowns gained, one thing stands out most to Kamara.

“The plays I made on defense,” he said. “Those were big plays, turning moments of the game, momentum swings that gave us that chance to go down on offense and score as a team.”

All three came in the second half, after Pope John Paul II’s sophomore quarterback Luke Terlesky had a decent first half (4-for-5, 63 yards). Kamara rattled him, though.

His first pick seized the momentum back from PJP (10-2), after they stoned Interboro on a fourth down to start the second half, the Bucs leading just 17-14. Kamara, playing center field from his deep safety position, jumped in front of a deep post pattern. Three plays later, after a keeper from Julian Bulovas went 47 yards to first and goal, Kamara punched it in from the 8.

He ended the next PJP drive, going up and ripping it away when it appeared Bradley Bass had been left all alone and Terlesky turned a go-route into a jump ball. Interboro punted on its next series. And while Terlesky strung together three solid completions and looked to have rebounded to get PJP to midfield, Kamara brought it all crashing down – emerging from a tangle with this third pick and jetting 62 yards.

That score, with 13 seconds left in the third quarter, made it 31-14 and took the wind out of Pope John Paul’s sails.

“It gives us energy,” lineman Rocco Barone said. “We feed off the energy, and we keep going, take over.”

With the ball, Kamara did what he usually does. Interboro settled for a field goal on its first series, cutting into the lead created on Boyd Skarbek’s two-yard touchdown. Luke Dunleavy was good from 22, a drive extended by Kamara dragging a tackler for eight yards on fourth-and-two.

Kamara got into the end zone with 10:31 left in the second quarter, an eight-yard scamper. He broke the record on what looked like an 84-yard touchdown run. Instead, it was blown dead at the five for an inadvertent whistle and backed up 15 yards for an Interboro sideline infraction.

No matter, that meant he waited three plays to get across the goal line on a nine-yarder.

“Sometimes we mess up blocks and stuff, but he really finds the lane to cut through and he just takes it from there,” Barone said. “Our job is to make sure he doesn’t get touched, and he takes it from there.”

“It’s just like every other game,” Skarbek said of Kamara. “We have a game plan and try to execute it as well as we can. I guess we didn’t execute well enough today.”

Pope John Paul appeared to turn the momentum with 22 seconds left in the first half on a Terlesky three-yard sneak for a score. The drive was aided by several Interboro penalties.

But the momentum would prove short-lived. Anthony Barr added an interception in the fourth quarter, the fourth off Terlesky. Kamara finished that drive by taking a pitching and high-stepping nine yards to the end zone.

Terlesky finished 10-for-17 for 125 yards. He added a three-yard rushing touchdown in the final minute of the first half. Skarbek carried 23 times for 99 yards. He also caught four balls for 49 yards, joining Braden Reed (three catches, 60 yards) and Brent Mitala (four for 20) in the passing game.

All 359 yards for the Bucs came on the ground, without attempting a pass. He and Theo Demopolous (10 carries for 33 yards) accounted for all 21 of the plays they ran in the first half.

The trophy is a culmination for the Bucs, many of whom started when Lux was a youth coach in middle school and rose with him as he took over for his mentor, Steve Lennox. The youthful core endured growing pains as sophomores and juniors, but the payoff is a special senior season.

“It feels amazing,” Barone said. “We worked for this since our eighth-grade year. We were lifting, with coach Lux and Coach (Sean) Wasson, and this has been our dream since freshman year.

“For us to win a championship in our senior year, our last year, to make that statement and leave that legacy, it’s a great thing,” Kamara said.

And with at least two more games left – next week’s game against the District 12 champion and possibly a Thanksgiving date with Ridley – Kamara is ready to keep carrying on, as a team and in his history-making endeavors.

“We’re not done yet,” he said. “I’m going to keep going. Yes, it’s a good accomplishment, but you have to keep going.”