Jaworski shatters school mark as Perk Valley tops Upper Perk

GRATERFORD >> Call them perfectionists, but Perkiomen Valley jogged into the locker room up 26-0 over Upper Perkiomen, well … disappointed.

Junior wide receiver Justin Jaworski had already hauled in six receptions for 155 yards and a score. Stephen Sturm had passed for 257 yards and the defense was in the midst of pitching a shutout for its 10th straight quarter.

The problem?

Penalties. And lots of them.

The Vikings accrued more penalty yardage than their defense let up in the first half, which became a stain on an otherwise lopsided 45-0 victory over Upper Perkiomen Friday night on the Vikings’ Senior Recognition Night.

“We’re not going to be able to play behind the sticks all night and get first downs the next couple of weeks,” Perkiomen Valley head coach Scott Reed said. “We shot ourselves in the foot. We can’t recover from that in a game the magnitude of next week and beyond.”

The Vikings finished the game with 11 penalties for 121 yards, seven of those markers coming in a first half that saw Sturm sacked twice to go along with two turnovers.

“That first half was sloppy,” senior running back Ronnie Arch said. “We put up 26, and for what we’re capable of, that was really poor.”

The penalties, albeit dark spot on the lopsided win for PV, still couldn’t diminish the offensive output from the Vikings (8-0 PAC-10, 9-0 overall), which remain perfect in the PAC-10 awaiting their date with Spring-Ford next Friday with the PAC-10 title on the line.

Jaworski shattered the school record for receiving yards, finishing the game with 214 yards on nine receptions with a score. Sturm finished the game 25-for-34 with 382 yards and two touchdowns, the fourth highest total in PAC-10 history. Arch added 148 yards and four touchdowns on the ground while David Williams added another 116 receiving yards with 10 receptions as the Viking offense amassed 562 yards of total offense while scoring on seven of their 10 possessions.

“We were getting yards but we had so many penalties,” Jaworski said. “We have to clean that up. We’re not going to convert on a first and 30 against Spring-Ford. We just need to tighten up some screws but we’ll get to where we need to be.”

The Vikings defense showed to be finely tuned as it registered their third straight shutout. Led by TJ Foley on the defensive line, PV limited the Indians to 50 yards of total offense in the first half (164 total) and forced them to go 0-for-11 on third down conversions. Their defensive stop on the Indians’ initial drive in the third was the highlight, forcing them to turn the ball over on downs after UP had marched its way down to the PV 5 behind steady runs from Michael Felix (10 carries for 89 yards).

“It all starts in practice,” Foley said. “We were slow at practice this week, it showed a little bit in the first half but we came back out and did what we had to do.”

“They did a great job stepping up, especially when they were threatening inside our own five,” Reed said. “They were able to get through four downs and make a stop. They did a nice job tonight. Upper Perkiomen was a physical team and they played smart. They play within their system and they get after you.”

Dylan Croissette finished with two sacks in the loss with Andrew Frantz finishing with one. Kevin Loose had an interception as the Indians trailed 13-0 after one quarter.

“The score is not really indicative of how well we played,” Upper Perkiomen head coach Tom Hontz said. “I thought we battled them tough and they’re a great group of athletes over there. We wanted to try and put something on the board but we short circuited down at the five-yard line. We had some good efforts that we tried to piece together but obviously not quite enough.

“We know they’re going for a PAC-10 title next week and big things in the district. But for us, we wanted them to know that we were here and I think that we did that. They had to keep their starters in the whole time and we battled them tough.”

The Indians had kept it at a 13-0 level until midway through the second when Jaworski caught a 28-yard touchdown pass from Sturm to make it 20-0. Arch then capped off the Vikings’ next drive with a 10-yard run to make it 26-0 entering the half.

From there, it was all PV.

Williams capped off a methodical 16-play, 76-yard drive, hauling in a perfectly placed touch pass from Sturm for a 6-yard score on the team’s initial drive of the second half. Following the aforementioned defensive stop, Arch followed up a 20-yard reception by Williams with a 30-yard touchdown burst up the middle before saving his best efforts for last. The senior back capped off the scoring after his 45-yard touchdown run was negated due to an illegal hands to the face penalty, taking the next handoff and going 55-yards to make it 45-0.

NOTES >> Aaron Morton finished with four receptions for 25 yards. … Upper Perkiomen blocked three PATs in the loss. With his two touchdown passes Friday, Sturm (26 TDs) is now tied with Zach Zulli for second all-time in Perk Valley history. Zulli threw for 26 in 2007 and still holds the record of 29 set in 2008.