Just as Allentown Central Catholic’s homecoming game against city rival Allen was about to begin Saturday night at J. Birney Crum Stadium, UCLA’s shocking upset win over Penn State had become a reality and disappointed many area football fans.
For a while on Saturday night, the favored Vikings looked a lot like the Nittany Lions did in the Rose Bowl.
They lacked focus and were outhustled and outplayed in several series.
Central Catholic got off to a quick start when a Grayson Schmell interception on Allen’s third play set up a Deon Johnson TD run to give the Vikings a 7-0 lead just a minute and two seconds after the opening whistle.Many thought an early finish via the mercy rule might be in store. But it never happened.
The Canaries got a spectacular 78-yard touchdown run from Michael Taylor to make it 7-6 and hung around for a long time before Central put away a 33-6 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference victory with two second-half touchdowns.
Patrick Cahill, Central’s junior quarterback, threw TD passes to three receivers — Lucas Hosak, Harry Restino and Tahir Edmondson — but was also sacked five times.
While the Vikings got five takeaways, including two interceptions from Schmell and another from Tahir Edmondson, Allen moved the ball effectively at times, with quarterback Julian Pagan’s peppering the Vikings defense with short throws.
Central closed the scoring with a 76-yard run by sophomore Trey Torres-Johnson and improved its record to 4-3, 3-1 EPC.
The Vikings have unbeaten Parkland, the No. 3 ranked team in the state in Class 6A, coming up Friday and know they have to play better to have a chance at an upset.
“It’s tough to stay playing at high level in this league, but that’s what we want to get to,” first-year ACCHS coach Jake Reichard said after a lengthy on-the-field huddle. “The fact that we were inconsistent is on me. We’ve got to preach consistency. We didn’t have a great week of practice and we kind of slept through the first half and as the leader of this program, that’s on me. I’ve got to get better and I promised the guys I would. I’ll start [Sunday] and we’ll start with them again on Monday.”
While Allen lost for the fourth straight time after starting the season 3-0 with a forfeit win mixed in, Reichard knew the Canaries had good athletes.
“There’s no team in this league where you’re just going to show up and play football and win,” he said. “I felt like that’s what we did a little bit tonight, just showed up. Again, that’s on me. We’ll address all the concerns going forward. We’ve just got to be more consistent.”
Central ended the weekend ranked third in the District 11 4A power rankings behind only Southern Lehigh and Bethlehem Catholic. Besides Parkland, the Vikings have Dieruff and Whitehall left on the schedule.
They are a near-lock to make the eight-team 4A tournament and have a bright future. Edmondson, Schmell, Hosak and Torres-Johnson are all sophomores.
Johnson, a senior, is one of the hardest workers on the team and a leader on both sides of the ball.
“A shoutout to my teammates for keeping going because we came out flat today,” Johnson said. “But you know, that’s part of the game.We came out in the second half and threw a bomb, and I’m just proud of the guys that we kept on working. You know every team is tough. We’ve just got to keep taking one step forward every day and keep getting better.”
Schmell, the grandson of local football coaching legend and Liberty defensive coordinator Joe Bottiglieri, said: “We just have to have a good week of practice because that translates to the game.”
Asked what he has learned the most from his grandfather, Schmell said, “Discipline. Just do your job. On the interceptions, I just tried to keep my eyes on the hips. I don’t know how I didn’t score on the interception return. I know I was close.”
Allen, meanwhile, is getting closer to becoming a solid program.
Canaries coach Joel Rupp, whose team finishes the season with games against Whitehall, Emmaus and Dieruff, praised his kids in a postgame huddle before they left the field.
“We let a lot of things slip where it was a fumble here or putting our eyes down for a second and letting someone beat us,” Rupp said. “But when we talk about being a team, this is the most growth that I have seen. I just want to remind everybody, too, that we are not the same team we were last week and we won’t be the same team next week that we were today. So be excited and be ready to grow. Be proud of yourselves and walk out of there with your heads up.”
