Plymouth Whitemarsh cruises past Hatboro-Horsham

WHITEMARSH >> Hatboro-Horsham knew if it had any chance of upsetting Plymouth Whitemarsh on Friday, it’d need to be able to stop the Colonials’ option offense and all its weapons.

Unfortunately for the Hatters, its own offense failed to hang onto the ball, turning it over three times in the first half as the Colonials cruised to a 54-20 home win.

“What’d they run in the first half? 10 plays? And for the score to be like that, we needed to do a better job on offense not turning it over,” Hatboro-Horsham head coach Mark Schmidt said. “That’s just sad. We knew they had a good offense but we didn’t even see much of it with the turnovers.”

A lot of football teams, especially successful ones, rely on their ability to replace injured players as the season goes on, and not miss a beat.

On Friday, Plymouth Whitemarsh sophomore defensive back Phil Taormina, who was filling in for injured starter Christopher Pierce, stepped up in a big way when his number was called and finished with two interceptions.

With PW (8-1) holding onto a 7-6 lead toward the end of the quarter, and Hatboro-Horsham (1-8) driving for what looked to be the go-ahead touchdown, Hatters’ quarterback Colin O’Sullivan dropped back to pass and was hit as he went to throw. The ball popped high up in the air, and Taormina moved under it and returned it 75 yards for a touchdown on his first pick of the night.

“I never thought it would happen but it did,” Taormina said. “It was kind of all a blur. I saw the ball pop up, I caught it, I saw the alley and I just told myself ‘there is no way I’m getting caught right now.’ I got tackled in the Norristown game at the two-yard line and I told myself it’s never happening again.”

On the very next Hatboro-Horsham drive it was Taormina again that picked off O’Sullivan, this time after his pass bounced off a receiver’s hands and popped up in the air.

PW took advantage of the short field two plays later on a two-yard touchdown run by Brian Dresnin. It was Dresnin’s second touchdown of the day.

Dresnin, a senior, finished with a team-best 91 yards and four touchdowns on 11 carries. But even on a day when he found the end zone four times, it was a 17-yard carry in the third quarter that stole the show, putting him over 1,000 yards.

“Honestly, I would have to say this is the greatest night of my life,” Dresnin said. “I personally want to thank every single one of the linemen, individually. Jake Davis, Dylan Duran, Tim McNally, Zach Davis Dan Kahley, Josh Lynch and Jack Hildebrand. I couldn’t have done any of it without those guys, and also I thank the coaches for putting me in position to accomplish this.”

O’Sullivan’s next pass was again intercepted and returned for a touchdown, this time by Christian Pierce.

Other than the interceptions, which were largely out of his control, O’Sullivan was effective throwing the ball for the Hatters.

The freshman signal caller finished with 191 yards and a touchdown on 12-of-24 passing.

“I know they had three interceptions, but that first half was the best he’s played all year,” Schmidt said of O’Sullivan. “It’s a tipped pass for an interception, a blown assignment up front for an interception and then we have a screw up on again and they make a play on it. PW is a good team and they do a good job. You can’t make mistakes against them.”

Hatters’ running back Jordan Collazo ran for a game-high 101 yards on 18 carries, and his seven-yard touchdown in the first quarter made it 6-0 as Hatboro-Horsham took its only lead of the game.

The Hatters have five weeks off before their annual Thanksgiving Day game against Upper Moreland.

“This can either be a really lousy five weeks or these guys can show up to work and we’ll go to work,” Schmidt said. “It’s up to them, how much do they really want to go out with a win?”

Plymouth Whitemarsh knows its headed for the District 1-6A playoffs, it just doesn’t know if its earned a home game yet. The Colonials came into Friday’s game ranked No. 9 in District 1, with the top eight seeds getting an opening-round home game.

“This has been a rewarding year,” Plymouth Whitemarsh head coach Dan Chang said. “We’ve gone through some tough times, the last two years we’ve won one game each year and I couldn’t be more proud of this team.

“We need to just play our game, whether it’s at home or away. Our guys play hard, we need to just keep our cool with some of these bigger schools and just do our job.”

Plymouth Whitemarsh 54, Hatboro-Horsham 20
Plymouth Whitemarsh14 27 7 6 — 54
Hatboro-Horsham 6 7 0 7— 20
Scoring
First Quarter
HH — 1 yard run by Jordan Collazo; 6:22
PW — 3 yard run by Brian Dresnin; 5:27
PW — 75 yard interception return by Phil Taormina; 1:15
Second Quarter
PW — 2 yard run by Brian Dresnin; 11:56
PW — 12 yard interception return by Christian Pierce; 11:46
HH — 38 yard pass from Colin O’Sullivan to Chrison Avery; 5:43
PW — 2 yard run by Brian Dresnin; 4:57
PW — 6 yard run by Ben Felgoise; 00:27
Third Quarter
PW — 4 yard run by Brian Dresnin; 8:21
Fourth Quarter
PW — 1 yard run by Josh Lynch; 10:38
HH — 4 yard run by Omar Ali; 3:34
Team Statistics
PW HH
First Downs 9 15
Rushing yards 271 174
Passing yards 0 191
Total yards 271 365
Passing 0-0 12-24
Penalties 4-26 7-52
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 2-0
Punts-Avg 0-0 2-31
Individual Statistics
RUSHING
PW: Brian Dresnin 11-91 4 TD; Ben Felgoise 4-66 1 TD; Larry McLaughlin 4-85; Michael Paciello 3-20; Glen Smith 1-1; Josh Lynch 2-8 1 TD
HH:Nahji Logan 6-14; Jordan Collazo 18-101 1 TD; Omar Ali 11-58 1 TD; Colin O’Sullivan 2-(-9); N’Gianni Cerisier 2-10
PASSING
PW: None
HH: Colin O’Sullivan 12-14 191 Yards 1 TD 3 INT
RECEIVING
PW: None
HH: Nahji Logan 2-30; Chrishon Avery 7-151 1 TD; Zehier Cheeze 1-9; John Long 1-8