Springside-Chestnut Hill shuts down Hill offense
POTTSTOWN >> The Hill School football team came out Thursday with a plan for handling Springside-Chestnut Hill.
Its guests also had a plan for their non-league pairing. And for the Blue Devils, it was a case of their best-laid plan trumping the Hill’s.
SCH took control late in the first quarter, got scores from a variety of sources along the way and dominated the Rams, 26-0. In the process, the Hill was left still in search of its first win after four outings.
“We’ve started well but didn’t finish,” Devils head coach Rich Knox said of his 4-1 club, which has been on a roll after losing its opener. “We need to be playing our best football at this time of year.”
Springside played a much better style than the Hill in the special Thursday afternoon tilt. Aaron Angelos, part of a quarterback tandem with Jack Elliott, worked exclusively behind center and threw a pair of touchdown passes. Aaron Rascoe accounted for a large chunk of the Blue Devils’ ground game, and kicker Jack Meyers chipped in with a field goal and three conversion kicks.
SCH even pressed the Hill into a third-quarter safety. It all helped the visitors from Philadelphia get tuned up for next week’s clash with Public League power Northeast High.
“They’re an impressive looking team,” Knox said of the Hill, “but I think our defense played great.”
The Rams flashed some solid play on defense, starting with pushing the Devils into a three-and-out after the opening kickoff. It limited SCH to Meyers’ 31-yard FG down the stretch in the first half, after it was stopped at the Hill 14 with 52 seconds to go, with Saleem Lockett recovering a fumble and Naz Higgins sacking Angelos for a 10-yard loss.
Offensively, it was a different result. The Rams’ best chance for scoring came as the clock ran down in the second quarter, getting to the Devils’ 37 only to see a pass to the end zone fall incomplete as time ran out.
“They (SCH) did a nice job. They were well-prepared,” Hill head coach Jeff Hollway said. “We wanted to get them out of their comfort zone, belly down on them.”
Instead, the Blue Devils worked all aspects of their offense in a big way.
Angelos went 10-for-17, covering 143 yards to five different receivers. He found Miles Hugee on a 53-yard play to get on the scoreboard with 5:33 left in the first, then opened the second half by hooking up with Elliott (three catches, 37 yards) on a five-yarder.
On the ground, Rascoe capped SCH’s scoring with a three-yard run around his right end with 8:31 left in the fourth. The Springside sophomore finished the game with 90 yards on 18 totes, his longest a 20-yard push through right tackle to the Hill 24 in the closing minutes of the third.
The Hill got the bulk of its 101 yards total offense on the ground, headed by Sharif Jones going 41 yards on eight carries — the highlight a 44-yard run at the end of the first half. In the air, Syre Gruber was 4-for-11 for 19 yards, with pairs of completions to Darnell Fleury and Gernard Finney for 14 and nine yards, respectively.
“Our run defense was awesome,” Knox said. “They’re big up front, and they have all kinds of runners. We wanted to stand up and not get pushed around, and we did that.”
The Hill’s kicking game had Keil get injured attempting to punt the ball away on the series that ended with the safety. Ryan Maloney came on for two tries at the end, his second at the Hill 17 going all the way to Springside’s 22 — a 61-yard boot.
“He banged his head on the bad snap,” Hollway explained. “Ryan Maloney is our backup. He stepped in and did a great job.”
The Rams tried a variation in the offensive backfield, having Fleury line up behind center on the closing drives.
“It’s a variation on the ‘wildcat’,” Hollway said. “I thought we could re-establish the line, so we put Darnell in the mix.”
The Hill moves into the Mid-Atlantic Prep League portion of its schedule next week, It will host Peddie School Friday at 4 p.m.
“We’re not able to look ahead,” Hollway said. “We had to come into this game prepared to go against a good Inter-Ac opponent.”
NOTES >> Meyers went 1-for-2 in field-goal tries, missing a 46-yard attempt at the end of the third quarter. “He’s able to boom them,” Knox said. “When you have a kid who can kick the ball in the end zone, like he does, it’s a blessing.” … The Hill’s first possession saw it drive to the SCH 33 before turning the ball over on downs. For the afternoon, it got into Blue Devil territory only three times in 10 tries.
