Interboro stays steady in face of Chester’s big plays
CHESTER >> Before a raucous Homecoming crowd and with three big plays going against them, the Interboro Bucs did what they always do.
They ran the ball. They ate up clock. They played defense.
Saturday, that was enough to survive Chester, 27-20, in Del Val play. The Bucs are 4-4, 2-1 in the league. Their playoff chances remain strong, their league title chances remain alive.
It was earned.
“They’re scary,” said Interboro coach Steve Lennox of Chester. “They just have the weapons. They’re scary.”
Interboro has them, too. As a team, it rushed for 259 yards. Kalie Kuyateh led the pack with 107 yards. Joe Forte had 81, Mike Moore 34 and an early touchdown. But it was quarterback Jared Dellipriscoli and his two sneaks from the one-yard line that made the difference.
The first came midway through the third quarter, giving Interboro a 20-12 lead and snatching back momentum. The second, the eventual game-winner, came early in the fourth quarter.
“We just knew our line could push and get the job done, so Coach (Lennox) trusted me and our line,” Dellipriscoli explained. “So we just got it done.”
He also passed for 32 yards, including a late first-half touchdown to Brett McLaughlin, and a key fourth down late in the fourth quarter, also to McLaughlin.
“He’s got nice legs, too,” Lennox said. “And he throws the ball well, too. It’s a win. I’m happy with it. A win is a win.”
Chester made sure that’s how Lennox would feel. The Clippers scored on Devan Freeman’s 80-yard run late in the second quarter, on punter Kavon Spells’ 65-yard run on a broken play early in the third and on Tahree Fuller-Bryan’s 43-yard pass to Lahneir McBride midway through the fourth quarter.
McBride started the game at quarterback, but coach Ladontay Bell moved him to wide receiver after he suffered an injury late in the third quarter. Fuller-Bryan, who started some early season games for Chester before an injury forced the change to McBride, stepped in off the bench, and three plays later, had the deficit down to 27-20.
Chester (2-6, 0-3) quickly forced a three-and-out, getting the ball back with just under six minutes remaining. However, it moved backward and punted. Interboro then killed all but two seconds off the clock before Chester’s final play fell short.
The Clippers rushed for 205 yards (145 via the legs of Freeman). They passed for 90. They moved the ball well. It wasn’t quite enough.
“Penalties hurt us, it was self-destructive,” said Bell, whose team was flagged 13 times. “We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot, can’t self destruct.”
The Bucs took advantage of those mistakes. So now they remain alive and well for their season-ending goals. The four-game losing streak is now a two-game winning streak. Finally, normalcy has returned to Interboro.
Lennox, though, knows giving up big scoring plays is not the way his team will survive. But when you win, well, it can be overlooked.
“We lost to Penn Wood on two big pass plays,” Lennox said. “We don’t have the personnel for big plays. We have to eat up the clock. I’m proud of my kids. My kids hung in there, they fought. We had some kids get dinged up, other kids came in and stepped in. So it was good.”
