Hatboro-Horsham slips past Souderton on late 2-point conversion

HORSHAM >> Mike Kapusta went with his gut.

“They had everyone in the world telling me to kick the thing and I just had a feeling,” the Hatboro-Horsham football coach said.

Jordan Collazo’s 16-yard touchdown run pulled the Hatters within 7-6 of visiting Souderton with just 2:55 left in the fourth quarter. And when an Indians offsides penalty on the extra point moved the ball a bit closer to the goal line, Kapusta elected to pass up the tie and go for a two-point conversion and the lead.

The Hatters went right back to Collazo, who marched into the end zone to put the home side up one and the defense maintain the slight advantage with a final-minute stand to give Hatboro-Horsham an 8-7 win on a rain-soaked Friday night.

“Well they went offsides, so that made the decision a bit easier. And I thought we had the hot hand with the fullback there,” Kapusta said. “And he’s a talented player and our o-line was coming off the ball nicely in the fourth quarter which I thought was the difference in the game.”

While the Hatters (1-2) got to celebrated their first win of 2018 and second straight victory over Souderton, the Indians were left frustrated by letting a game slip away with miscues and missed opportunities to fall to 0-3 for the first time since 2013.

“I’m just disappointed,” Souderton coach Ed Gallagher said. “Our kids gave great effort, I just said it to them, they gave great physical effort but mentally we have to sharpen up. This is the third straight week where we’re jumping offsides, going in illegal procedure. We’re making rookie mistakes right now and at some point we got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

“We’d like to be a ball-control, running offense. It’s really hard to do that when all of sudden you gain three yards and then a penalty puts you back at 2nd-and-12. We did that repeatedly over and over again.”

The game began 30 minutes later than its scheduled 7 p.m. kickoff due to lightning in the area. After a dry start, a steady rain began at the tail end of the first quarter and did not dissipate until near the end of the contest.

“We had to overcome a lot. The ball was slippery and put on the ground a few times and I didn’t even count the penalties right now but there’s a lot,” Kapusta said. “And so to see the kids overcome it, to see the kids fight back and scratch and claw to the bitter end and go for two and win, there’s not many better feelings.

Costello paced the Hatters on the ground with 28 yards on seven carries. Daniel Pineda led Souderton with 34 yards on nin carries while quarterback Andrew Vince was 7-for-19 for 75 yards.

“Honestly, I was scared to go for two,” Costello said. “I wanted to take the extra point to tie it up and maybe stop them, get the ball back. But we got it and we won.”

Both teams begin Suburban One League conference play next week. Hatboro-Horsham starts its SOL American schedule on the road against Upper Dublin while Souderton hosts William Tennent in its SOL Continental opener.

“We got to win a game. That’s what’s disappointing. This win would have cured a lot of the issues that we’re having,” Gallagher said. “You can clean up little things with a win and build on them. But when we start sliding, you start to lose things and we got to find a way to stay together, get back at it next week and hopefully get our first one.”

After a scoreless first half, Big Red grabbed a 7-0 lead after Kyle Walker’s kickoff return set the Indians up the Hatboro-Horsham 10. Three plays later, Nick Guthrie reversed field to reach the end zone from two yards out at 10:39 in the third quarter

Souderton twice forced turnovers — the first on a Kyle Schmidt interception, the second on a fumble — inside Hatters territory in the third but could not take advantage of either — both drives ending on missed fourth down conversions.

“We haven’t found a way to step on the gas and put teams away. We had so opportunities tonight. It was just disappointing,” Gallagher said.

In the fourth, Hatboro-Horsham drove down to the Indians 13 but an incompletion gave Souderton the ball with 6:25 remaining. The Hatters, however, forced a three-and-out and took over at the Indians 38. On 2nd and 10, Hatboro-Horsham went into its bag of trick with a halfback pass — Ismael Collazo connecting with John Long for 22 yards down the Big Red 16.

“So it was a great throw by Ismael and a great catch by John. That was a huge momentum swing for us,” Kapusta said. “We knew we needed a spark and we got it there.”

The next play, Jordan Collazo found some space to his left and dashed for a 16-yard touchdown to make it 7-6 with 2:55 to go.

“I saw to the left side there was really nobody really on defense on that side,” he said. “It was through the three hole, so I just bounced it out and wide receivers got the good block and I went in.”

The actual two-point conversion with anti-climatic as Jordan Collazo burst into the end zone through the right side of the line to give the Hatters their first lead.

“If I’m called to do something, I got to do it,” the junior said. “Do it for the team.”

Trailing by one, Souderton try for a game-winning drive started at its own 25 at 2:55. On a 3rd and 8 from the Souderton 40, Vince caught his own deflected pass and gained seven yards. After picking up the 4th down on a two-yard QB sneak, Vince hit Willie Goods for 12 yards to the Hatters 39 then ran for five yards to the 34. The drive, however, stalled from there. After a five-yard penalty came two incompletions then on fourth down a Logan Flynn sack forced a fumble recovered by the Indians but for a six-yard loss.

On Souderton’s first drive Friday night, the Indians had a 1st-and-Goal from the nine but were called from back-to-back holding penalties and series ended with a 40-yard field goal try blocked.

In the final minute of the second quarter, Souderton again reached the HH nine but a bad snap on a field goal attempt resulted in an eight-yard loss and the teams went into halftime tied 0-0.