Plymouth Whitemarsh blanks Sun Valley in District 1-5A opener
WHITEMARSH >> The championship-chasing portion of the Sun Valley High football season coming to an end Friday, it was up to coach Ernie Ellis to balance the negatives and positives.
The positives won.
Though the Vanguards fell, 41-0, at Plymouth Whitemarsh in the first round of the PIAA District 1 Class 5A tournament, they drew value from being in the tournament for the first time in five years. They also cleared enough ground for junior running back Noah Griffin to become a four-digit rusher, his 70 yards on 17 carries raising his season total to 1,060.
Mostly, Ellis figured, the Colonials helped hammer home a point that he’d been making for weeks: The Vanguards must be stronger.
“We say it every week,” Ellis said, “but now is the time for us to get back in the weight room.”
While the 13th-seeded Vanguards were competitive through a 5-5 regular season, they were overwhelmed at the line of scrimmage against the fourth-seeded Colonials. That was made particularly plain while they were in punt formation, PW blocking three attempts and returning two for touchdowns.
Christian DiCiurcio blocked a first-quarter punt and returned it 27 yards for a score. In the third quarter, Jaeshaun Johnson returned a snuff 24 yards for a touchdown.
“We just saw an opportunity where we might be able to come after a couple of punts,” said PW coach Dan Chang. “Our guys did a great job of getting after it, timing it up and timing that block right. That was big for us.”
The Colonials improved to 9-2 and will return home Friday to host the winner of the Saturday game between Marple Newtown and host Chester.
“We’re ready to go,” Chang said. “Hopefully, we’ve checked all our boxes. Our guys are mature enough to handle that opportunity.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh played efficiently on offense, rushing 44 times for 412 yards. Tommy Hannon ran 59 yards for a touchdown on the third play from scrimmage and stashed a 7-yard score into his 97-yard rushing effort.
Quarterback Aiden O’Brien had 182 yards rushing, including a crushing 94-yard keeper one play after the Vanguards were stopped on downs in the third quarter. The Colonials rarely wasting an opportunity, Luke Winterbottom, who rushed for 94 yards, ran 16 yards for a second-quarter TD one play after the Vanguards lost a fumble.
Learning experiences, Ellis knows, can come with a cost.
“Absolutely,” he said. “This just shows the next level of play and the finality aspect of it.”
Such is the nature of a single-elimination tournament, yet the Vanguards’ mood was boosted with the awareness that Griffin has another year to play.
“He has exceptional vision,” Ellis said. “His speed is not amazing, but he churns his legs, he knows when to slow a play, he knows when to hit a hole, he knows how to read a block. He is something special.”
In a muffled way, so has been the Vanguards’ breakthrough season.
“It would have been great to reach the 1,000 yards with a win,” Griffin said. “But we still got there. We still have next year. We have a lot of people coming back. We’ve just got to fight harder.
“We are just trying to build the program back up to get to this standard every year. We’ve got to start building pieces for the offseason. People should start getting in the weight room now. Before, the standard around us was just to get one win a season. That wasn’t enough. So to get to the playoffs was very big for us.”
That experience appreciated, the Vanguards can add to their satisfaction should they be able to solve visiting Chichester on Thanksgiving.
“Now, we have to go out there and take care of business,” Griffin said, “like we should have done tonight.”
