New uniforms, new scheme and a new result for Dieruff
Dieruff football coach Dave Lutte said he wanted his players to learn to respect the military.
So, on Saturday night at Allentown’s J. Birney Crum Stadium, his team wore camouflage-styled uniforms provided by the National Guard. The game also featured other tributes to recognize those who serve this country in the bravest of ways.
“There’s no question we have to teach our younger generation respect for military and for me, it’s extra special because I have a son, Hunter, who’s a junior grade lieutenant in the Navy stationed USS Tucson in Hawaii,” Lutte, wearing a Navy baseball cap, said. “Before the game, I got a little choked up when we read [the World War I poem] ‘In Flanders Fields’ over the P.A. system because I was thinking of him. I know he was checking in on the scores.”
And Hunter Lutte had to like what he was seeing because the new uniforms and a new offense provided a new result. Dieruff rolled to a 41-18 win over Pocono Mountain East for its first victory of the season.
The Huskies built a 21-0 lead, save East close the half with 10 points, but then put the game away with the first 20 points of the second half.
Senior quarterback Jordey Guzman ran for 85 yards and a touchdown; sophomore Juan Manzano ran for TDs covering 47 and 30 yards; senior Jonathan Serrano had two interceptions, including a pick-six, and also a rushing score.
Dieruff totaled 291 yards rushing and had five players run for at least 35 yards.
After Mekhi Ashby, a potential Division I recruit as a running back, wernt down with a severe injury on the first series of the first game against Liberty, Lutte said the team has had to adjust.
“We’ve had to adapt without Mekhi,” Lutte said. “It took us a couple of weeks to get into full gear and tonight we saw the full package for the first time and we want to keep expanding on it. The idea is to spread the ball around and get more people involved. I’d bet five or six guys ran the ball tonight. It was a matter of finding the right spots for them and running an offense that best fits their talents. Now we need to keep the momentum going.”
Dieruff travels to Stroudsburg (3-3) next and Lutte acknowledged that will be “an extremely tough game against a good team.”
But after five losses and a lot of trouble just getting a normal practice schedule, Lutte said it was good to see his kids smile and feel rewarded for their hard work.
“This is the first week we’ve had a normal week of practice in a while,” he said. “Nothing was normal. But this week was normal and we got back to basics, did a lot of drill week and you could see the results.”
Seeing the kids feel good about themselves is why Lutte and his staff work as hard as they do.
“These kids have a lot of challenges in their lives, and then we have some challenges with a lack of facilities, which has been well-publicized,” he said. “But to see the joy in their faces actually brings tears to my eyes because they deserve success. They’re good, hard-working kids who work just as hard as the Parkland and Nazareth kids. To see them smile does my heart good. They deserve this.”