Northampton can make school history with a win over Whitehall
The Northampton High School football team is 9-0 and has claimed the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference North Division title.
But with a win over Whitehall in the renewal of the Cement Bowl rivalry Friday night at Zephyr Stadium, the Konkrete Kids have a chance to do something no other Northampton team has ever done: go 10-0 to start a football season.
According to former K-Kids athlete, coach, and athletic director Mike Schneider, who has most of the school’s athletic records in his possession, the 2021 Northampton football team is already in rare company.
Football began at the school with a single game in 1924 and Northampton had its first full season in 1925. In nearly 100 seasons of football, only a handful of teams got through eight games without a loss, starting with the 1932 unit that went 7-0-1.
The first unbeaten, untied team was the famous 1937 “Wonder Team,” which averaged nearly 58 points per game.
The 1955, 1956, and 1959 teams all went 9-0. The 1949 team went 8-0 after each Kids squad from 1945-48 went 8-1 with losses to Phillipsburg. The scheduled game with the Stateliners in 1949 was canceled due to a widespread illness similar to COVID-19.
So four previous teams went 9-0 and two others got through eight games undefeated, but no one has ever gone 10-0 .
“Back then you only played nine games and that was it,” Schneider said. “We had a lot of one-loss teams that had their one loss come against P’burg. We always played them and they were always good.”
History lessons aside, what is most important to the current Northampton squad is earning respect, the kind of respect that only comes when you beat a team from the EPC South.
The Kids beat Bethlehem Catholic on opening night, 17-14, in their previous game against a South opponent. Against North competition, they rallied from a 20-0 deficit to beat East Stroudsburg South 21-20 on Oct. 1 and beat the other seven North teams by an average of 36.7 points.
Northampton knows that to get the respect of the rest of the Lehigh Valley it has to beat teams from the EPC South, starting with a Whitehall team that may be 3-5 but still has qualified for districts and has some of the best offensive personnel in the area.
“We understand that we will be judged by how we do against the teams from the South,” said firstyear Northampton coach John Toman. “So this is a South game and it’s a rivalry; it’s the Cement Bowl.
“I coached at Northampton before, but we played Whitehall during the regular season and it wasn’t the rivalry game at the end like it is now. So we’re excited about it, and with a win we have a shot at a top seed and a home game in districts. So it’s important, and you can feel it from the kids that they’re excited.”
The Northampton-Whitehall games the last two years have been as exciting as any played in the EPC. Schneider had one more fact of interest, saying that his records show that the all-time series with Whitehall, which began in 1929, is even at 41-41-6.
And recent games have been as close as the series record.
In 2019, Northampton scored the last 23 points to rally for a 43-37 win. Last year, it was a backand-forth thriller that came down to who had the ball last. Whitehall did and got a late rushing TD from Quinn Wentling to pull within one and won it 36-35 on Wentling’s pass to Bryce Bashore.
“It’s a great rivalry that just got started a few years ago and we’re building a tradition with it; it’s always an exciting and electric game,” Northampton senior quarterback Cooper King said. “It’s a great feeling being 9-0 and being divisionchamps,butwehavealot more to prove. We have to prove ourselves in the South, so it’s a really big game for us.”
Caden Reph, a senior tight end/ linebacker, agreed with King.
“We’ve been working hard to get to 9-0 and win the North and now we’re excited to compete against a South team,” he said. “Whitehall’s a very athletic team. They’re hurting from some injuries, but so are we, so I think it should be a good game and an even matchup.”
Reph said a few defensive stops and a fast start are going to be important.
“We’re trying to approach it [as if ] it’s another game, but obviously it’s a bit of a bigger game leading into districts,” he said. “We just want to keep winning.”
Everyone associated with the Northampton program is proud of what has been accomplished so far, especially considering the change in coaching staffs and also the adversity that came early in the season with the death of assistant coach Mike Gurdineer, who died Sept. 8.
“It hasn’t been an easy situation all the way through with the loss of Coach Gurdineer and all of the emotions and stress that came with that,” Toman said. “I am proud of my coaching staff for how we got through that, and I know I leaned on some of my veterans like Kevin Ronalds and Phil Dorn.
“Coach Dorn had been through a similar situation at Pocono Mountain East several years ago when two players were in a car accident and one lost his life. Stuff like that is really hard on a team. We’ve also had some bumps along the way, like when we lost some kids on game day and so on. But we’ve handled our business.”
Toman feels his team is playing good football and he has been especially pleased with the development of his offensive line.
“We have seen those guys progress and really get better and jell the last three or four weeks,” Toman said. “The key is the kids have bought into our system By now, they know what’s all about it and they know we’ve had success with it.”
Toman, who spent last year as an assistant on a district title team at Allentown Central Catholic, is now 21-2 in his last two seasons as a head coach. He went 12-2 at Southern Lehigh in 2019 when the Spartans shared the Colonial League crown, won the District 11 5A title and advanced to the state quarterfinals before losing to eventual state champ Archbishop Wood.
He is happier now than he was two years ago when he resigned after 14 seasons with the Spartans.
“It’s a breath of fresh air with the support I have here from the administration,” he said. “The Southern Lehigh football community was awesome, but I can’t say enough about my AD here at Northampton [Shaun Murray].
“I’m happy, let’s put it that way. I love teaching in the building, I love coaching the kids I’m coaching and I’m super happy. We try to keep it in perspective and know that it’s just a football game, but at the same time we’re excited.”