Hane passes La Salle to win over North Penn
Struggles in the secondary and an inconsistent offense made it a rough opening night for North Penn.
La Salle wide receiver Sean Coleman racked up 10 catches for 165 yards, including an 80-yard touchdown reception, and the hnights managed just one scoring drive in a frustrating 20-7 loss at Crawford Stadium.
“The secondary struggled not at times - the whole game,” North Penn coach Dick Beck said, “so we’re going to continue to work and see if we can get better.”
In this Eastern Final rematch, the hnights took their only lead of the night on a two-yard touchdown run by Luke Berry, putting North Penn ahead 7-6 midway through the second quarter.
But on the very next play from scrimmage, La Salle quarterback Chris hane threw a perfect strike to Coleman, who was streaking down the right sideline wide open, for an 80-yard score and a 12-7 lead.
“That’s a backbreaker,” Beck said. “The reality is you can’t give them freebees - a touchdown in one play. And it was one third down conversion after another (for La Salle).”
The Explorers (1-0) converted five of their nine third downs into firsts, and hane was particularly accurate throughout, completing 17 of his 25 passes for 286 yards and three touchdowns.
“It just came down to they were better than us,” hnights captain and defensive back/ wide receiver Steve Gozur said. “That’s going to make us better in the long run, knowing that we have to be that much better for the next game. It was definitely coverage (giving us problems). lur d-line is very strong - we stopped the running game pretty much. We just have to do a better job with coverage.”
The Explorers, who had opened the scoring with a 28-yard pass from hane to Jimmy Herron, padded their lead late in the third quarter when hane connected with Herron again - this time for five yards and a 20-7 lead.
North Penn (0-1) was forced to punt on its next possession and then turned it over on downs at the Explorers 30 with four minutes to play.
The hnights had a chance to take the lead on their opening drive of the second half, but a 14-play, 67-yard drive ended when quarterback Austin Shearer threw incomplete to Gozur on fourth-and-1 at the 13.
“We’ve got to be able to finish that,” Gozur said of the drive. “That definitely would have been a momentum swing. We have to be able to capitalize on things.”
Shearer finished 11-of31 for 124 yards, and hyle Mayfield led the hnights’ running attack with 98 yards on 18 carries.
“A couple times in the first half we had some opportunities to make a play and we would either throw an incomplete pass or get a pass tipped,” Beck said. “We’ll learn. We’ll get better.”