Upper Dublin looking to match last year’s record

Coming off of its most successful season in school history Upper Dublin has its work cut out for it for an encore act.

The Cardinals enter this season with a senior-loaded team with a lot of talent as they look to repeat as champions of the Suburban One League American Conference.

“What we’re trying to take care of is what we can take care of, what we can control,” Upper Dublin coach Bret Stover said. “We have a lot of great senior leadership.”

Upper Dublin does lose some talent from last year’s team that finished with a 9-1 mark in the regular season. The Cardinals will have to replace key cogs in the offense such as wide receiver Matt Thompson, 57 catches in 2014, and fullback John Lee who combined for 22 touchdowns with Thompson.

The Cardinals will look to number of receivers like Gary Fields and John Barrett to replace the production of Thompson as they do return other key offensive starters quarterback Ryan Stover and tailback Kaleif Lee.

“Its kind of an odd situation here at Upper Dublin that we have the experience that we do coming back,” Stover said. “You would hope with the experience at quarterback, running back and the offensive line, you bring eight of 11 back on that side of the ball, you hope to step up and take it a little further.”

Defensively, Upper Dublin boasts a solid bunch as well, led by a linebacking corps made up of Henry Winebrake, Stacey Gardner and Jack Rapine. The linebackers will lead this speedy defense that will get after teams.

The Cardinal defense, like the offense, returns eight of 11 starters and adds La Salle transfer Isaiah Henrich to help anchor the defensive line.

“I think we can be more aggressive,” Winebrake said of the defensive speed. “Stacey plays weak side inside linebacker and he can really just shoot the backside whenever he wants because he know we’re going to be over top. It lets you do more things it let’s you be more aggressive.”

Last year, the Cardinals surprised some teams with how good they were, but the 2015 version will be doing no such thing as they change from a sleeper program to a team with the target on its back.

“We just have to focus on each game each week and don’t overlook anybody,” Winebrake said. “We’re going to have to play our best every week and if we do that we’ll be all right.”

Top Photo: Upper Dublin starting quarterback Ryan Stover passes during practice on Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. (Bob Raines/Montgomery Media)