Healing process starts for Nelson, Chester

UPPER CHICHESTER >> Prior to his team’s Del Val League opener at Chichester Friday night, Ed Nelson Jr. was crying as he sat in the visitors’ locker room.

Chester’s junior running back had attended his grandmother’s funeral in the morning and needed to gather himself with the rest of his Clippers teammates ahead of kickoff. After all, he said, that’s what she would’ve wanted.

“(Friday) was a very long process,” Nelson said. “From 6 a.m. to right now, and my heart’s just broken.
“I had to come out here and play for her.”

That purpose drove the Clippers’ featured back from the get-go, as he kicked off Chester’s opening drive with a shifty seven-yard rush. He set the night’s tone on the next play, when he cut right and dashed untouched for a 63-yard touchdown that set his Clippers team rolling to a 20-0 shutout of the Eagles at Tony Apichella Memorial Field. It marked Chester’s first win of a hard-luck season.

Nelson’s big scamper helped him lead all Chester rushers with 90 yards on 15 carries, while Ta’Mir Friend hauled in two interceptions off Chichester quarterback Clarence Bowens to help seal a league clash that was closer than the final scoreline indicates.

However, the Clippers’ winless record entering Friday night was a little misleading, too. They lost three of those games by one possession, and their worst defeat of the season remains a nine-point loss to a 4-1 Haverford team that’s enjoying a fast Central League start ahead of a Saturday matchup at Garnet Valley.

To add insult to injury, Chester had been primed to build on a 4-6 (3-2 Del Val) campaign last fall, the Clippers’ winningest record since a 4-6 season in 2010.

“It’s been rough,” Friend said. “We feel like we play every game with a chip on our shoulder because no one expects us to win. And when we’d come close, it was like a (heartbreaker) because we play our hearts out every game and we give it our all.”

The Clippers (1-4, 1-0) were stout on defense for much of the night, forcing Chichester (3-2, 0-1) to punt five times along with its three turnovers. Friend’s first pick came after Bowens looked Martin Frempong’s way on fourth down toward the end of the half, and it gave Chester 20 yards of field to work with toward the end of halftime.

Clippers quarterback Jamir Green capped the drive with a one-yard keeper to the right to give Chester a 12-0 lead heading into the break.

The Clippers’ first win of the season wasn’t pretty. There were some mistakes, including nine penalties that cost a collective 75 yards. One of them, a personal-foul call, negated a 46-yard fake-punt, pass-and-run play from Green — who doubles as the team’s punter — to Braheem Bishop Jr. that would have tacked on at least six more points to Chester’s total.

Though Chichester’s Kevin Miller also had a touchdown taken away (a 24-yard run in the fourth quarter negated by a holding call), the Clippers’ defense dominated a physical contest for most of the way.

“They’re a good team and they have some good players,” Eagles coach Ryan Smith said. “They’re right next door and these kids were fired up. They all know each other in some way, shape or form. … Hopefully we get the next one.”
Green accounted for the game’s final score late in the fourth quarter with another one-yard plunge to send the Clippers into celebration mode.

“It’s a whole new season,” Nelson said. “We’re in league play now. I’m not going to say nonleague games don’t matter, but that’s just a test. We played a few tough teams, and we’re in a whole new league now and we just got over the hump. We showed the Del Val what Chester really is.”

But one factor on this particular night helped Nelson get through a test of his own.

“We played for Nelson’s grandmom,” Friend said. “We came out and we did it for her. We came into the league, showed what we can do and hopefully we opened some eyes.”