Pope John Paul II defeats Berks Catholic in high school football game called in second quarter due to lightning

The lightning may not have been visible at Forino Sports Complex Friday night, but Pope John Paul II certainly made Berks Catholic feel the jolt.

Pope John Paul II scored two touchdowns in less than four minutes to open the non-league football game and went on to defeat Berks Catholic 35-0.

The game was halted with 4:11 left in the first half due to lightning being detected within 5 miles of the field. After a delay, both coaches agreed to make it an official contest.

“Fourteen points right out of the gate made it a lot easier to play in front,” said PJP coach Scott Reed. “I know when Berks Catholic’s in the game or when they’re in the lead they’re a really tough team because they run that Wing-T to perfection.”

The Golden Panthers (3-0) prevented the Saints (1-2) from getting anything going by dominating the line of scrimmage offensively and defensively.

Boyd Skarbek rushed for 102 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries and quarterback Luke Terlesky threw for 147 yards with a pair of touchdown passes going to Braden Reed.

Defensively, PJP limited Berks Catholic to 32 yards and two first downs, one by penalty.

“We’re only going to go as far as our O-Line and D-Line are going to take us,” Scott Reed said. “I don’t care what you do in football, I don’t care how fancy it is, you’ve got to block, you’ve got to get off blocks and you’ve got to make tackles.

“I was really proud of our offensive and defensive lines tonight. I thought they handled the line of scrimmage and allowed us to do what we wanted to do.”

The Golden Panthers made it look easy, taking the opening kickoff and driving 72 yards in eight plays to take the lead on a 1-yard sneak by Terlesky. Skarbek rushed six times for 61 yards on the opening drive.

After the Saints fumbled the ensuing kickoff, Terlesky hit Braden Reed with a 25-yard touchdown strike just 10 seconds later and the Golden Panthers led 14-0 with 8:39 left in the first quarter.

“They have a good quarterback, they have a good stable of receivers, they have a fullback stud to hand the ball to and their line is huge.” said Berks Catholic coach Rick Keeley. “That’s a very nice high school football team there. We didn’t rise to the occasion.”

The Panthers continued to roll as Skarbek scored on runs of 6 and 8 yards and Braden Reed raced 56 yards after catching a short pass from Terlesky with 5:45 left in the first half to make it 35-0.

Lightning was detected during Berks Catholic’s next possession and the game was stopped. After a delay of 30 minutes, the coaches decided to call it a game.

“They had certainly shown that they were the better team here tonight,” Keeley said. “Waiting another hour or two hours to play the game, I just didn’t know what good that would bring.”