HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL: Schuylkill players excel in East-West Game

MECHANICSBURG — Williams Valley’s Alex Achenbach was listed as a defensive safety on the East team’s pre-game roster.

Yet head coach Pat Mason knew what the Viking senior could do when he gets his hands on a football.

“He knows the type of player I am on offense. I figured he’d give me a chance to run the ball,” Achenbach said of the Nativity coach after the East fell 27-24 to the West in Sunday’s Pennsylvania State Football Coaches Association Small-School All-Star Classic at Cumberland Valley High School’s Chapman Field.

After rushing just two times for 16 yards in the first half, Achenbach was part of an East comeback that nearly produced a victory.

Instead, the West scored the decisive touchdown with just 5 seconds remaining on a 1-yard throw from Loyalsock quarterback Dylan Gee to Hanover wideout Joey Wilkinson.

By then, Achenbach and Northwestern Lehigh’s Dalton Clymer had become a big part of the East’s game plan. The two combined for 89 yards rushing, mostly on counter plays, in the second half.

“I conditioned a lot, even here in the offseason,” Achenbach, whose 64 yards rushing topped the East, said. “I’m good to take 10 straight carries, just like in season. I thought we could have leaned on that the entire time.”

But after the West scored and then kicked off out of bounds, giving the East the ball at its 40-yard line, Palmerton quarterback Matt Machalik’s long pass downfield fell incomplete to end a game that had a decided Schuylkill League flavor.

After all, Pine Grove’s Lauren Wessner sang the national anthem, and the game was officiated by a Schuylkill League crew led by referee Joe Gerchak. Mason was joined on his East coaching staff by two other Schuylkill League head coaches, Tamaqua’s Sam Bonner and Lehighton’s Tom McCarroll.

“I’ll tell you what, it was probably the most challenging thing I’ve ever…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/high-school-football-schuylkill-players-224600423.html

Author : Republican & Herald, Pottsville, Pa.

Publish date : 2024-05-20 22:46:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.