Upper Dublin rallies to knock off North Penn with 2 TDs in final minute

TOWAMENCIN >> With everything that transpired in the fourth quarter’s final minute to make Upper Dublin’s unlikely comeback a possibility, Griffin Pensabene knew the Cardinals could not settle for anything less than leaving Crawford Stadium with a victory.

“So I got in the huddle and I’m telling these guys we’re not kicking a field goal – we’re winning this game,” he said.  “Right now, we’ve been through so much and now that we have the opportunity to go out and win this game, I’m thinking that we can’t just come up short right now.”

North Penn seemed to have things in order when Amir Major scored on a seven-yard touchdown run for a 28-17 lead with 2:13 remaining in Friday night’s Suburban One League nonconference matchup.

But a fourth-down conversion on the UD’s ensuing series kept its hopes alive and two plays later, Pensabene caught Colin O’Sullivan’s pass and raced 38-yards to the end zone. A two-point conversion had the Cards within three with 42.4 seconds left.

Austin Pendleton’s onside kick took a fortuitous bounce and Shyne Roberts’ recovery near the left side gave the Cards one more chance.

“I’m just sitting there, I’m praying,” O’Sullivan said. “I’m saying give me the ball back I’m going to score.”

The Cardinals senior quarterback made good on his promise, putting the ball up and hitting a streaking Pensabene in the end zone for a 25-yard touchdown with just 29.5 seconds on the clock.

Upper Dublin proceeded to hold on the Knights’ final drive and celebrated an improbable 32-28 victory to remain undefeated.

“The play before that I ran a comeback on the side to get a first down for (14) and then Sully told me run the same thing, try to hit a stutter and then hit it with a fade,” said Pensabene of his winning TD. “So I hit 10, I tried hitting him with a stutter, he broke on the comeback and I hit a fade – Sully threw it perfectly.

“I give all my credit to him, one of my friends since I was a kid. We have a connection like no one else in the state I believe. Just, he put the ball where it needed to be, I made the play. I mean, it’s great man, it’s great, it really is.”

O’Sullivan threw for 315 yards on 19-of-24 passing and fourth touchdowns – three going to Pensabene – as the Cardinals’ 15 points in the last minute gave them their first win over North Penn since the 2015 District 1-4A final. The Knights beat the Cards 35-20 last year at Crawford.

“Just so proud,” Upper Dublin coach Bret Stover said. “We still have a lot of work to do. We’re far from perfect. We beat a very good football team, Coach (Dick) Beck and his squad is well coached but it’ll help us, the game tonight is going to help us when we get in that tight situation again wherever it might be. We just got to stay focused. It’s just got to be one at a time, we can’t get caught looking around now.

“You beat North Penn that means a lot, it does in this area but we got a lot of work to do. And we got goals.”

Pensabene also caught a 68-yard TD in the first quarter and finished with five receptions for 142 yards while Chris Kohlbrenner had six catches for 94 yards and a touchdown. Nyfise McInytre added 83 yards on the ground on 18 carries.

The Cardinals (3-0) led 17-7 at halftime after blocking a 30-yard field goal just before the end of the second quarter.

But the Knights responded with the first 21 points after the break – going up 21-17 after UD was ruled to have fumbled at the goal line and Jay Ford-King took the recovery back 102 yards for a touchdown with 53.5 seconds left in the third.

“Huge momentum change, that fumble recovery,” O’Sullivan said. “We said keep our heads up, we’re going to be resilient here. And they believed in me and I believed in them and we just happened to hit it off at the right time. Got a little bit lucky on the onside kick and I told them we were going to score and we did.”

Upper Dublin drove to the Knights’ 24 on the following possession but an incompletion on 4th-and- 12 at the 30 gave North Penn the ball with 9:03 to go in the fourth. The Knights then went 70 yards on 11 plays, the last Major’s seven-yard TD run for an 11-point advantage at 2:03.

Major ran for a game-high 122 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries for North Penn (1-2) while quarterback Ryan Zeltt was 9-for-14 passing for 125 yards. Yazeed Haynes had four catches for 60 yards.

“I thought we really played hard,” Beck said. “We got down and we came back and took the lead and we’re an onsides away from winning the game.”

On a 4th-and-4 from the Upper Dublin 39, O’Sullivan connected with Chris Kohlbrenner for 19 yards to the North Penn 42. O’Sullivan then hit Pensabene over the middle on 2nd-and-6 at the 38 and Pensabene eluded a tackle attempt and sped to the end zone.

“They were playing deep, we knew we could have the middle open,” Pensabene said. “I just ran a dig, a 10-yard dig, he hit might right in the middle, I was able to get outside of the safety and score there which was big.”

On the two-point conversion, Kohlbrenner stretched over the goal line after catching an O’Sullivan pass to pull the Cardinals to within 28-25 at 42.4 seconds.

Pendleton’s onside kick to the left side took a big hop over waiting North Penn players and then it was dash for both sides to the ball – Roberts diving into the pile to come out with it, setting Upper Dublin up at the NP 36 with 23.4 seconds remaining.

After O’Sullivan hit Pensabene for a nine-yard completion, the duo connected again for the winning score from 25 yards out. Pendleton’s extra point made it 32-28.

A late hit after Zeltt’s nine-yard run moved the Knights to the UD 40. A Zeltt 14-yard pass to Xavier Bryan had North Penn at the 26 with 8.2 seconds to play. On the final snap, a flag was thrown on the Knights but was declined after Zeltt’s completion to Bryan came up nine yards short of the end zone as time expired.

“Look, if we can’t recover an onsides kick due we really deserve to win?” Beck said. “It got in between four of our players and their guy jumps on it and we’re just laying there. We got to coach it better. We got to get better.”

Both teams begin SOL conference play next week. North Penn hosts Neshaminy while Upper Dublin visits Bensalem.

North Penn took a 7-0 lead on Friday night’s opening series as Michai Cuffie capped a nine-play, 65-yard drive with a 31-yard TD run at 8:44 in the first quarter.

The Cardinals, however, responded on their first offensive play as Pensabene caught an O’Sullivan pass, evaded a tackle try and raced away for a 68-yard score to make it 7-7 at 8:23.

Pendleton’s 25-yard field goal at 9:32 in the second quarter gave Upper Dublin a 10-7 edge. The Knights drove to the UD 29 on their next possession but gave the ball back after an incompletion on 4th-and-4. UD proceeded to go 71 yards on 11 plays with O’Sullivan hitting Kohlbrenner over the middle for a 22-yard touchdown with 4:22 left in the second quarter.

Upper Dublin blocked North Penn’s 30-yard field goal try in the half’s last seconds to stay up 17-7. The Cards started the third quarter with the ball but went three-and-out and the Knights pulled to within 17-14 as Dave Dawes’ 11-yard TD run at 7:03 finished an eight-play, 53-yard drive.

The Cardinals were poised to regain the 10-point lead but as McIntyre was tackled near the goal line, the ball popped free and was ruled a fumble. Ford-King grabbed it from the air in the end zone and dashed down the right sideline, spinning through a tackle attempt then sprinting for the 102-yard touchdown for a 21-17 NP advantage at 53.5 seconds in the third.

Upper Dublin 32, North Penn 28

Upper Dublin (3-0) 7 10 0 15 – 32

North Penn (1-2) 7 14 0 7 – 28

First Quarter

NP – Michai Cuffie 31 run (Ryan Bocklet kick), 8:44.

UD – Colin O’Sullivan 68 pass to Griffin Pensabene (Austin Pendleton kick), 8:23.

Second Quarter

UD – Pendleton 25 field goal, 9:32.

UD – O’Sullivan 22 pass to Chris Kohlbrenner (Pendleton kick), 2:05.

Third Quarter

NP – Dave Dawes 1 run (Bocklet kick), 7:03.

NP – Jay Ford-King 102 fumble return (Bocklet kick), 0:53.5.

Fourth Quarter

NP – Amir Major 7 run (Bocklet kick), 2:13.

UD – O’Sullivan 38 pass to Pensabene (O’Sullivan pass to Kohlbrenner), 0:42.4.

UD – O’Sullivan 25 pass to Pensabene (Pendleton kick), 0:29.5.

 

UD NP

First Downs 19 22

Rushes-yards 30-109 35-196

Passing 19-24-0 9-14-0

Passing yards 315 125

Totals yards 424 321

Punts 1 1

Penalties-yards 4-40 0-0

Fumbles-lost 2-1 0-0

Rushing

Upper Dublin: Nyfise McIntyre 18-83; Tawfiq Bartlett 3-19; Dominick Paone 5-16; Colin O’Sullivan 4-(-9).

North Penn: Amir Major 17-122, TD; Michai Cuffie 5-38, TD; Dave Dawes 4-21, TD; Ryan Zeltt 9-15;

Passing

Upper Dublin: Colin O’Sullivan 19-24-0, 315, 4 TD.

North Penn: Ryan Zeltt 9-14-0, 125.

Receiving

Upper Dublin: Griffin Pensabene 5-142, 3 TD; Chris Kohlbrenner 6-94, TD; Tawfiq Bartlett 3-25; DJ Cerisier 4-52; Dan Johnson 1-2.

North Penn: Yazeed Haynes 4-60; Xavier Bryan 2-31; Mario Sgro 1-16; Michai Cuffie 1-10; Rashad McNeill 1-8; Amir Major 1-7.

Interceptions

Upper Dublin: None.

North Penn: None.