The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Pennridge, East fight for playoffs
Rams need a win to qualify for D1-6A postseason
Playoff hopes will be at stake Saturday afternoon when Pennridge travels to Central Bucks East for a key Suburban One League Continental Conference contest. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. The Patriots come into this one ranked 16th in the District 1-6A Playoff standings (16 teams get in). The Rams are right behind, ranked 18th.
East raised its record to 5-4 overall and 3-2 in the conference last week with a 45-21 win over William Tennent while Pennridge fell to 4-5 overall and 3-2 in the conference with a 42-20 loss to Truman.
The Rams need a win to get in, and would like to duplicate last year’s effort, when they earned a 28-12 victory over the Patriots.
They’ll try to slow down and contain a tough East attack.
Quarterback Evan O’Donnell is heating up, throwing for almost 200 yards and three scores last week, and the Pats have a variety of backs to go to in the ground game, including Bryan Kelly. In the victory over Tennent, Kelly scored from 22 yards out on the first possession of the third quarter and later added a 33-yarder.
On the play, Kelly got into the open field and cleanly hurdled a William Tennent player at the 10 before falling into the end zone. Kelly was not finished there. On the Patriot’s third possession of the second half, he scored yet again from 14 yards out.
“(Kelly) is a freak of an athlete,” Pats coach John Donnelly said. “He’s a guy whose responsibilities we’re trying to grow on offense, defense and special teams. He did a really nice job.”
Pennridge quarterback Zak Kantor can spread the ball around, and Ryan Garner chews up yardage in the ground game.
“I said it to my kids, I need 11 guys that want to be here for each other. We need to find it. I need to find who those 11 are that are going to fight,” Pennridge coach Cody Muller said heading into the final week of the regular season. “We got a big game (against) Don
PLAYOFFS >> PAGE 4