Interboro shuts out Norristown 34-0, moves to 2-0
WEST NORRITON >> Interboro High football coach Steve Lennox is not a frills kind of guy.
Keep it basic, keep it simple, and he’s a happy camper.
Saturday afternoon Lennox was happy.
Wet, but happy.
After all, his Buccaneers sloshed past Norristown, 34-0, making his Bucs 2-0 on the young season and setting up a showdown with Neumann-Goretti next week.
“A win is a win, and I’m happy with it,” Lennox said after the Bucs broke the postgame huddle. “There are still things we need to do better.”
One of those things Lennox doesn’t have to worry about is running the football. The Bucs rolled up 78 yards on their opening drive of the game, which ended with Andrew Grieb scoring from the 7-yard line, and the die was cast.
Interboro polished off its second drive of the half when quarterback JD Delipriscolli sucked in the Eagles defense on play action and tossed a 33-yard scoring pass to Brett McGlaughin with 1:06 left in the half, and the visitors were free and clear.
“Our line played very well and so did our defense,” Delipriscolli said. “When our running game is going so well the defense thinks we’re going to run and it opens up play action.”
The Eagles huffed and puffed, but were unable to manage much beyond getting deep into Buccaneers territory twice in the first half.
“Interboro is a good team,” Norristown head coach Jason Powel said, “but we’re taking so many steps forward, and then the game starts and we take steps backward.
“We had great practices all week, and then the game starts and we go backwards.”
Speaking of backwards, Norristown opened the second half watching the Bucs go 60 yards on nine plays, with Joe Forte busting in from the 1-yard line to lift the Interboro advantage to 21-0.
Delipriscoli found McGlaughlin twice on the next drive, twice for a total of 56 yards as the visitors blew it open.
Only back-to-back illegal motion penalties on the PAT marred the march, and forced the contest to be played with most fans, getting increasingly wet from the rain, groaning and bemoaning the lack of a running clock.
In fact, when Forte scored the touchdown that made it 34-0 early in the fourth quarter, a small chant went up in the stands for the Bucs to go for two.
“If you go for two there it makes it look like you’re rubbing it in,” Lennox said, “although it’s something that went through my mind.”
By game’s end, the teams scrambled to get off the field and Powel held a long coaches only meeting in the Eagles locker room.
“I think we saw our kids quit today,” Powel said, “and we don’t do that very often.“But this team is still coming together.”
GAME NOTES >> Shortly after the back-to-back illegal procedure calls on the Buccaneers’ extra-point attempt, the Eagles defense was whistled for two separate personal foul penalties on the same play, taking the team from a second-and-three to a second-and-33. Powel said after the game that Norristown lost nine players to private schools over the off-season.
