Perkiomen Valley silences Pottsgrove late
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> As Stephen Sturm lofted a perfectly placed pass down the hash to a sprinting Justin Jaworski with three minutes remaining in the game, a collective gasp could be heard on the Pottsgrove sideline.
With each step Jaworski took in a momentum-swinging grab, the gasps turned to silence.
Jaworski’s 59-yard reception, his lone catch of the game, set up a game-clinching score by Ronnie Arch as Perkiomen Valley utilized a late fourth-quarter scoring flurry to push past Pottsgrove 34-21 on the Falcons’ Military Appreciation Night Friday.
“It’s huge. Coming in here, we lost a lot of guys and we didn’t know how our offensive line would hold up,” Sturm, the junior signal-caller said. “But their young bucks, they held up well. We wore them down and everything was open for us, especially in the fourth quarter.”
PV at the tail end of its alma mater pic.twitter.com/F7r7JSAvvq
— Sam Stewart (@Samuel_Stewart7) September 19, 2015
The Vikings’ win overshadowed standout performances from Pottsgrove’s Wyatt Porter and Tyrell Barr. Porter, recovering from an injury that saw him limited in the team’s win over Pope John Paul II, ran for a game-best 146 yards and two touchdowns. Barr, coming off a 324-yard performance last week, rushed for 110 yards as the Falcons were done in by big plays down the stretch after playing to a 14-all tie at the half. “I’m pretty proud of my kids,” Pottsgrove head coach Rick Pennypacker said. “We knew that we were going to be in a dogfight. We knew in film that they were so good. Our gameplan worked to perfection but we had a couple of costly mistakes at critical times. “I give Scotty a lot of credit, he has a good football team. We pounded up front and I didn’t know we could run the ball like we did against them. We’ve got to get our kids healthy, get them back and if we can do that we should be a pretty good football team.”
Touchdown Pottsgrove! Finn to Christian Pace for 21-yard score on fourth down. 26-21 PV. 5:18 left pic.twitter.com/HNrIW0sMHG
— Sam Stewart (@Samuel_Stewart7) September 19, 2015
The win is the second straight victory over the Falcons for the Vikings, who topped Pottsgrove 49-21 to clinch their first outright PAC-10 title last season.
That game featured a 35-point onslaught in the first half from the Vikings. This game couldn’t have been any more different.
“This was just so physical,” Perkiomen Valley head coach Scott Reed said. “They’re just a physical, tough football team. It took everything it had to get some stops. Eventually we were able to do that, make some plays and we were finally able to turn over the momentum in the end.
“We rotated a little bit on defense. We tried to get as many looks as we could. We brought in subs and then you just try and stay calm. This was one of those ‘It’s the fourth quarter. Who’s going to come out and win this game?’ Fortunately we were able to make enough plays at the end to do that.”
Big, momentum swinging plays.
Aaron Morton, coming into the game with 21 yards receiving on the season, hauled in a crucial 54-yard touchdown pass from Sturm at the tail end of the third quarter to give the Vikings a 20-14 lead. Ronnie Arch then broke off a 53-yard run on the Vikings’ next possession setting up Sturm’s 13-yard keeper for the score to make it 26-14. After Pottsgrove scored on its next possession, Sturm connected with Jaworski on the aforementioned 59-yard pass to set up Arch’s 5-yard touchdown run to seal it.
Sturm finished the game 15-for-19 passing for 276 yards and three scores (two passing and one rushing). Arch, who registered two touchdowns in last year’s win over Pottsgrove, hit that mark again as he rushed nine times for 91 yards.
Sean Owens, coming in with one reception on the year, hauled in four passes for a game-high 92 yards. His first reception a memorable one as he caught a 60-yard strike from Sturm to set up an Arch score 50 seconds into the game.
Finn sacked by Marren. PV takes over at own 26 pic.twitter.com/yO1giCOzhv
— Sam Stewart (@Samuel_Stewart7) September 19, 2015
“I was just doing my job,” Owens said. “It was a big game, offensive line did a good job, Sturm did a good job finding me, defense played well, Ronnie ran hard. It was an all-around team effort. All the young guys stepped up.”
The win is regarded as a stepping stone for PAC-10 title contention with the winner of this game going on to clinch a share of the PAC-10 in 12 of the last 29 seasons.
Right now, that’s not on the mind of Arch and the Vikings … only winning is.
“It feels really good,” Arch said. “But with the win we can’t look down on any other team. We have to keep up the tempo, keep this going with us and hopefully we can continue this throughout the season.”
NOTES >> All wasn’t good for Perkiomen Valley as the team totaled 10 penalties for 83 yards. … David Williams finished with 32 yards rushing in the win but Reed was more impressed about his selflessness in the team’s win, as well as other receivers which stepped up. “David Williams, we had him running the jet sweep fake over and over again because they were going to him,” Reed said. “That took effort to keep sprinting out there and not get the ball. That’s a selfless kid. Certain kids like Sean Owens, Aaron Morton and Ronnie Arch, were a bigger part of the game more so than the Jaworskis or the Williams. It was nice to see other kids step up.” Perkiomen Valley finished with 406 yards of total offense to Pottsgrove’s 333. … Pottsgrove quarterback Ryan Finn finished 6-for-8 for 53 yards and a score. …Christian Pace finished with two receptions for 26 yards and a touchdown.
