Hurricanes roll along
Liberty routs East Stroudsburg North to go to 2-0
The first of several Thursday night football games to be played in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference this season gave Liberty a chance to showcase its improvement.
The Hurricanes took advantage of having the stage to themselves to rout East Stroudsburg North 46-13 at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium to become the first EPC team to get to 2-0 this season and match their win total of all of last season.
Sophomore Gabe Green followed up an EPC-best 196-yard rushing performance with 82 yards on eight carries and scored three touchdowns, giving him five scores even before Labor Day.
Sophomore Jake Pukszyn, who is best known in local sports for basketball, caught six passes for 142 yards and scored the first two TDs of his career as Liberty began a season at 2-0 for the first time since 2019.
That year the Hurricanes beat Pleasant Valley and Pocono Mountain East in the first two weeks and then went just 1-7 the rest of the way.
This time there’s a belief that Liberty can keep winning even as its rugged EPC South schedule begins next week against Parkland.
The Hurricanes scored touchdowns on their first four possessions in building a 28-0 lead and answered a North touchdown late in the first half with one of their own.
Liberty scored on its first possession of the second half with backup quarterback Caden Vermuelen finding Pukszyn four times for 58 yards, including a 36-yard TD pass. Tre Parham, the Hurricanes’ starting quarterback, came on to throw a 2-point pass to Cole Daignault to put the game into the mercy rule with 9:18 left in the third quarter.
“It was just a great night,” said Pukszyn, who was a Morning Call co-rookie of the year in boys basketball last winter when he helped the Hurricanes reach the District 11 6A finals. “We started the game with a great running game. We have a great line and great quarterbacks and they just found me. I just had fun with it and tried to do what I could do with it.”
Pukszyn, whose father Jeff is the former head coach at Moravian University and the current defensive coordinator at Whitehall, played middle school football but sat out his freshman year.
“I think I made the right decision sitting out, but I knew I wanted to come back,” he said. “It made me realize how much I loved the game and how much I love coming out here and playing with my boys. I love running around playing backyard football. It won’t hurt my basketball. Playing football is going to get me better for basketball.”
Pukszyn said he believes the winning can continue for the football team. Liberty uses two quarterbacks and Tre Parham and Caden Vermuelen, who is also a basketball teammate of Pukszyn’s, combined to throw for 279 yards.
“We’ve just got to clean up some little stuff, but we’ve started 2-0,” he said. “If we can clean up the little stuff, we’ll be great.”
Green agreed and believes the program’s first winning season since an 8-4 mark in 2015 is attainable.
“We’re very humble and hungry,” he said. “I definitely think we’re more hungry, we’re more dedicated and we’re ready to go. Now we’ve just got to stay focused and have better practices than we’ve had. There’s a lot more to come.”
North, under first-year coach David Laughlin, had several positive moments on offense with sophomore quarterback Wayne King running for 71 yards and Romeo Carmen-King shaking off a first-half injury to get a 32-yard TD run.
The Timberwolves have won just twice in their last 58 games, but should be more competitive as they start the EPC North portion of their schedule against Allen next week.