Perkiomen Valley approaching season with fresh attitude

PERKIOMEN — In 2015 the Perkiomen Valley football team will look to build off of the success it had in 2014 and go even further into the state playoffs. A year ago, PV went 9-2 overall and won the Pioneer Athletic League with a perfect 9-0 record before losing in the playoffs on a last-second field goal to Downingtown East.

“Everybody goes into a season expecting to hopefully be successful,” head coach Scott Reed said. “I never know what to expect from one year to the next. Our job right now is just to try to – every practice, every day – improve. We’re a long way from where we were last year. Just a lot of work to do – lot of execution, lot of assignment work to do and technique stuff. It’s going to take a while.”

The Vikings return a handful of starters on both sides of the ball from last year’s league championship team.
The three key players on offense are quarterback Stephen Sturm, running back David Williams and wide receiver Justin Jaworski – all three of which were all-league selections in 2014.

“We feel like we have a quarterback coming back who started every game last year as a 10th grader,” Reed said. “He can handle throwing the ball, but can also handle our running game and handle the football well.

“Our strength is probably in our guys in the backfield… Right now (Sturm, Williams and Jaworski’s) biggest thing is to work towards being in leadership positions instead of just being players on the team. Hopefully that starts to happen as camp goes forward. All three are having a good camp and we hope that they have a great season.

“It’s not just about those three. We have to get all 11 players on both sides of the ball playing at a high level. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off last year.”

Players to watch on defense are TJ Foley, a returning first team all-league defensive lineman who can play anywhere up front, linebackers Ryan Light and Nick Marren and safety Williams.

“We have a returning starter at each level,” Reed said. “We have two linebackers returning, one defensive lineman returning and one defensive back returning. So I wouldn’t say there is a strength per se, I think there is a lot of numbers competing on our team at defensive back and linebacker and it seems like we have a lot of guys – like a revolving door – on defense coming in and out trying to compete for those spots.”