Plymouth Whitemarsh tops Hatboro-Horsham with late field goal

HORSHAM >> Plymouth Whitemarsh kicker Zach Zygmunt knew that, obviously, there was a great deal of pressure on his boot late in the fourth.

He lined up at the Hatboro-Horsham 20, sizing up a 30-yard, go-ahead field goal attempt with just 18 seconds left in the contest.

“I knew I had to remain calm,” the senior said. “There was a whole lot on this kick.”

He had missed one from 37 out earlier in the game, driving it too low to lift over the bottom of the goalposts.

“I definitely had to get that back,” he said.

The ball snapped, and Zygmunt let loose a very-similar line drive kick that sailed, seemingly in slow motion and with PW’s season hanging in the balance, just over the bottom post to put the Colonials up, 31-28.

“It felt great,” he said. “It was my first kick like this. I was full of joy.”

After they kept the Hatters out of the end zone on the games final possession, it goes without saying that so were the rest of his teammates, as PW notched a crucial Suburban One American win to keep their district playoff hopes alive.

“It was huge,” PW coach Dan Chang said. “We’ve been saying that we’re in elimination mode for the rest of the season. This is a really big one — to come here and play a really good team, it was huge for our morale and our playoff hopes.”

The Colonials, now 6-2 overall and 3-2 in the SOL-A, need to win out against Cheltenham and Springfield Township to keep their slim postseason chances alive.

First up for them though was this contest against a resurgent Hatter team (HH and Upper Dublin were the only perfect teams in the conference heading in), and it was close throughout. The teams traded four quick scores in the second quarter on one-yard and 64-yard touchdown runs by Nafeese Nasir for PW, and on an 89-yard kickoff return for six by Calvin Broaddus Jr. and a seven-yard pass from Casey Walsh to Joe Lee for Hatboro-Horsham.

The Hatters, clicking on offense in the third, took their first lead on Walsh’s 35-yard pass to Broaddus about eight minutes into the second half.

“We could have packed it in,” Chang said, “But give credit to the kids. They made big plays when they had to.”

PW came right back on the legs of Nasir. The senior back ripped off runs of 71 and 72 yards to put PW up, but Hatboro-Horsham answered right away with a 70-yard play of their own, a Walsh pass to Jordan Mason for six.

“Offensively, they moved the ball well,” Chang said. “Their quarterback is excellent.”

He’s not wrong — Walsh finished with 321 yards and three scores on 20-29 passing. Generally speaking, he was on the money, but one lapse — an interception on the first play after HH got the ball back on a Nasir fumble late in the fourth — is what did the Hatters in.

The Colonials drove it 18 yards downfield, and the rest is history.

“Plymouth Whitemarsh played really hard,” Hatters coach Mike Kapusta said. “They had a good game plan, and when the dust cleared, they just had a few more than we did.”

“This is really the first time we’ve been a meaningful game up here in a while,” Kapusta went on. “You learn from every bit of the experience. We’ll look at the film, and correct our mistakes.”

Most of those mistakes centered around the play of Nasir. He ran rampant all over the field, with three 60-plus yard runs on his way to a 31-carry, 350-yard, four-touchdown night.

“I was coming off of a shoulder injury,” Nasir said. “I had an AC joint that was bothering me last week, and I haven’t really been able to get going in the last two weeks.”

“I just brought all that anger and frustration on this one,” he went on. “I knew that as a leader and as a captain on this team that I had to step up.”

Did he ever.

“He put on a good 15 pounds of muscle in the offseason and didn’t lose a step,” Chang said on. “When he saw that open field, he took off.”

He even completed a couple of passes, and registered a six-yard reception to pad his total yardage.

“He’s special,” Chang said. “He does some really nice things. He showcased his speed a little bit.”