GAME FOUR
GAME FOUR
GAME FOUR

A touch of Class lifts Rams to first win



By Ed Kracz
Staff writer

PERKASIE — On Pennridge’s first offensive play, Mike Class swept left and went 69 yards for a touchdown.

On Pennridge’s third offensive play, Class swept left and went 64 yards for a touchdown.

Those were all the touchdowns Class would score, but that would not be the end of his yards. The sophomore speedster, playing behind a reconstructed offensive line made necessary by injury, rushed for 218 yards on 17 carries to spark a 28-7 win over Lansdale Catholic in a nonleague football game Friday night in the rain at Poppy Yoder Field.

It was the Rams’ first win of a season that began with three losses.

Lansdale Catholic is still searching for that elusive first victory.

“It was probably the best game I ever played in, a big step up from last week,” Class said. “Coming off last week with that loss, we were just angry because we know we could’ve won that.

“This week, we came out with a fire in our stomach and wanted to win so bad, and that’s what we did.”

Hard to argue with that burning desire after the Rams played well against Council Rock South last week, but ended up on the short end of a 2-0 score.

In just 4 minutes, 3 seconds of action, the Rams already had 14 points more than they had scored in 48 minutes against CR South. Class’s first TD came 16 seconds into the game, his second with 7:57 to play in the opening quarter.

Lansdale Catholic also used the first quarter to put up a touchdown, trimming Pennridge’s lead to 14-7 on a 32-yard run by sophomore Mike Iacono with 2:25 to go.

As field conditions deteriorated, though, moving the ball became more difficult. Even hanging on to it did, as both teams combined for 16 fumbles and eight lost fumbles.

“A lead means everything in conditions like this,” said Pennridge junior quarterback Alex Krivda. “Teams can come out and be flat and not have the urge to just win, but we came out with the urge to win, scored right off the bat, scored on the next drive then just really kicked them in the mouth.”

Krivda threw just two passes, but both were for touchdowns.

His first toss to James Marrero covered just 2 yards but it came on fourth-and-goal and with one tick left on the clock until halftime.

The shame of it for Lansdale Catholic was it had just held the Rams on fourth-and-three at LC’s 22-yard-line, but on its first possession after the defensive stop, fumbled the ball back to Pennridge on a nice play by Rams defensive end Mike Supp, a 6-foot-5, 195-pound junior.

“I thought that I saw a lot of improvement, just certain breakdowns at certain times, they cost us the game,” said Crusaders coach Jim Algeo. “For example, we stop them there, it’s 14-7, then we fumble the ball back to them and they get a score on fourth down.

“I saw our kids do a lot of good things, obviously I saw mistakes. We just have to keep working to get better and eliminate those mistakes.”

Krivda then sealed the scoring on a 21-yard touchdown throw to sophomore Pete Psomiadis with just 41 seconds left in the third quarter.

“We start eight underclassmen on both sides of the ball,” said Pennridge coach Randy Cuthbert, explaining that is because of injuries. “A good portion of them are sophomores, so young guys are going to be up and down, but I think they got some valuable experience last week and it gave them some confidence that they can play if they execute.

“I think that helped, and I think tonight it carried over a little bit.”

.Pennridge                    0   0   0 14-14
Bensalem                      7 14  7   0-28

Scoring Summary

B-Snetter 86 punt return (Rosenfeld kick)

B-Lebesco 33 run (Rosenfeld kick)

B-Newkirk 24 pass from Hopkins (Rosenfeld kick)

B-Snetter 8 run (Rosenfeld kick)

P-Supp 6 pass from Krivda (Midgett kick)

P-Class 6 pass from Krivda (Midgett kick)

Team Statistics
  P B
First Downs   10 7
Yards Rushing                   154     135
Yards Passing                    88 55
Total Offense                     242      190
Comp. Passes, Int    7-17-3 5-7-1
Fumbles-lost                     5-2        4-2
Penalties-yards               3-25    10-70
Punts-Avg.                      5-33.2  2-34.0
Sacked-Yds. Lost            1-5 0

Individual Statistics

Pennridge

Rushing: Class 14-103; Krivda 5-30; Crawford 4-25; Peters 4-8; Marrero 1-8; Kim 1-1; Pasquale 3-(-6); Dubyk 1-(-11).

Passing: Krivda 7-16-2, 88 yards, 2 TDs; Pasquale 0-1-1

Receiving: Class 3-55, 1 TD; Psomiadis 1-13; Stutzman 1-13; Supp 1-6, 1 TD; Kim 1-1

Interceptions: Class

Bensalem

Rushing: Lebesco 8-69, 1 TD; G. Nieves 4-28; Hopkins 10-23; Snetter 3-13,1 TD; Newkirk 1-2

Passing: Hopkins 5-7-1, 55 yards, 1 TD

Receiving: Newkirk 3-50, 1 TD; Snetter 1-10; Lebesco 1-(-5).

Interceptions: Walker, Avakame, J. Nieves
GAME SUMMARY