‘Character and grit’
Freedom rallies, then holds off Emmaus in classic
Freedom has had a lot of big wins in the past five years, including two District 11 championship victories.
But it’s hard to remember a win that showed the program’s character better than Thursday night’s 28-27 win over Emmaus in the District 11 6A semifinals at East Penn School District Stadium.
Down 21-12 with 9:21 left in the third quarter after Emmaus scored a third touchdown on its third full possession of the game, Freedom buckled down defensively and turned the game around.
The Patriots scored 16 unanswered points to take a 28-21 lead and then stopped a two-point conversion try after the Green Hornets scored a touchdown with 2:44 remaining.
Freedom, 10-2 and winners of nine straight after a 1-2 start recovered an onside kick and got one final first down on an Emmaus penalty to protect the lead and punch its ticket into next Friday’s 6A final where the Patriots will play Parkland. The Trojans beat
Northampton in the other semifinal.
It will be Freedom’s fourth appearance in the finals in five seasons, and the Patriots will be going for their third district gold.
“Character and grit,” Patriots coach Jason Roeder said. “We feel we’ve been showing that for a long time. Our toughness, staying together even when things were
getting tough, and then focusing on the next play ... that’s what our kids do. It’s a credit to teenagers to be able to do that in this kind of environment when let’s face it, you’re looking at maybe your season coming to an end.”
Instead, it was the end for an Emmaus team that was ranked fourth in the state in 6A. The Green Hornets finished 10-2 and lost to Freedom in the playoffs for the sixth time in the last seven years in the playoffs, including twice in the finals.
Emmaus coach Harold Fairclough didn’t second-guess himself for going for two when an extra-point kick would have tied the game with 2:44 left in regulation. A penalty on Freedom moved the Green Hornets from the 3 to a yard-and-a-half from the end zone.
But they couldn’t get into it as Dylan Darville, who earlier became Emmaus’ first 1,000-yard receiver in a season, was thrown for a loss as he tried to come across on a reverse from right to left and took a handoff from Josiah Williams. Freedom read the play and wasn’t fooled. Sophomore linebacker Justin Peluso was the
first to get to Darville and got help from senior end Nick Ellis.
Jake Fotta, Emmaus’ starting quarterback, was shaken up on his touchdown run a few minutes before and had to sit out the pivotal play.
“We only needed a yard-and-ahalf, and I thought we could get it,” Fairclough said. “Then I thought we’d get a stop on defense and close it out. But it didn’t go that way.”
It turned out to be the final Emmaus offensive play of the season, and the negative play was in contrast to earlier in the game when the Green Hornets couldn’t be stopped.
They scored on their two full possessions of the first half with only the halftime clock stopping them.
Fotta and Tylik Jarvis both had touchdown runs.
Then they went 63 yards on their first possession after halftime and got a TD pass from Fotta to Jarvis to make it 21-12 less than three minutes into the second half.
But Freedom moved the ball effectively as well with Ethan Neidig throwing for one touchdown and running for another in the first half.
After his team got down by nine points, Neidig led a 79-yard TD drive that he capped with a
6-yard TD run and then found John Roeder, the coach’s son, for the two-point conversion to make it 21-20 with 5:45 left in the third.
An interception by Roeder after Fotta was pressured and hit as he threw the ball, plus an Emmaus penalty, set up Freedom at the Emmaus 9. Jalen Fletcher scored on a 7-yard run to give Freedom its first lead of the night with 37.4 seconds left in the third period.
Ellis caught the two-point conversion pass from Neidig to make it 28-21.
“It’s all about doing the little things right and as long as we do those we know we can win games,” Ellis said.
It stayed 28-21 for a while as Emmaus went four possessions without a first down.
However, the Green Hornets took advantage of a defensive stand and a short punt to take over at the Freedom 32 with 4:26 left. Two passes by Fotta covered 26 yards, and he ran the last six yards himself, getting a 3-yard TD score. ButEmmauswouldn’tscoreagain. The Green Hornets racked up 192 yards on offense in the first half, including 112 in the passing game as Fotta was 9-for-12. The first drive of the second half produced 63 more yards.
However, Emmaus gained just
30 yards over the game’s final 21 minutes.
“At halftime we knew our linebackers and secondary weren’t playing the best,” Ellis said. “In the second half we had to bring it and get stops, and our offense had to keep throwing the ball. We made the changes we needed to make.”
“Coach [Greg] Moore did some things with our defense at halftime, just pointing out where they were trying to hit us and where we had to win a couple more battles,” Roeder said. “From there, our kids were just a little more comfortable with what was going on, and we were able to play a lot faster and came up with a lot of big plays.”
None was bigger than the stop of Darville on the two-point attempt.
“To get a stop like that on the 1-yard line against that kind of offense is a credit to our kids and coaches,” Roeder said. “I wasn’t surprised they went for two after they got the penalty. That’s a tough offense to hold out for a yard-anda-half.”
Roeder said he has 19 seniors and it’s a special class.
“To spend another week together will be really, really special,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little emotional this week thinking this might be the end of my time with this group,
so I’m grateful to see them next week. We’re going to enjoy this on a Thursday night and then get back to work tomorrow.”