Experience key to Schuylkill Haven’s victory

In any sport, experience is important. And that especially holds true in the game of football.

Coming into its District 11 2A championship matchup against Palmerton on Friday night, this year’s Schuylkill Haven squad had plenty of that. The Hurricanes (8-4) won an Eastern Conference title in 2015 and a district title against the Bombers (8-4) a year ago.

The Hurricanes’ experience, especially on the offensive line, proved to be too much for a relatively young Bombers team. Haven came through with a second consecutive District 11 2A title, defeating Palmerton 48-13.

The Hurricanes returned the nucleus of their offensive line from a season ago and it showed early and often. The veteran group up front pushed and pulled in Haven’s ground-and-pound style on every drive throughout the game. Sophomore running back Kobe Brish continued his record-breaking season by rushing for 322 yards and as a team Schuylkill Haven rushed for 410 yards.

As noted, experience counts for a lot in the game of football. And on Friday night, it counted for a lot of first downs and an impressive amount of rushing yards.

“We have an experienced group up front and they came out and executed,” said Schuylkill Haven head coach Mike Far. “They really had a good week of practice and they were focused and prepared. We also changed some things up with formations too, because of some things they were doing and that group handled that well. It was just a great effort.”

“Up front I always refer to it as a boxing match. If you keep giving a team those body blows play after play and you’re winning your battle, that starts to take a toll, and that’s what our offensive line was able to do tonight.”

Obviously, the result wasn’t what the Bombers were looking for tonight. But there’s plenty to proud of and to look forward to for this Palmerton bunch. The Bombers responded after losing their top-two offensive players from a season ago, that equated for a lot of it’s total offense and touchdowns. They reached the district championship for a second consecutive season and improved their win total by one game.

“I think our kids really did a remarkable job to get back to this game again. We’ve had a lot of young kids step up, and throughout the season, you could see four to five sophomores playing at a time and making contributions,” said Palmerton head coach Chris Walkowiak. “Obviously, getting Tekoah (Guedes) this season made a difference, he was the engine that made us go, but we had so many underclassmen step up throughout the season.”

“If you look back at the preseason, some people picked us to finish 11th in the league, only winning a few games, and we were able to win eight and that’s a credit to this group. It was a total team effort. The result wasn’t what we wanted tonight, but I’m proud of our kids for getting here.”

Despite the loss on Friday, the future continues to look bright for the Bombers. Although they were inexperienced this season in the trenches, they return five players up front that played a lot of football this year.

At the skill positions, where Palmerton is considered to be the most talented, it returns a host of key contributors. Jordan Nelson (So.), Andrew Sabo (So.), Aaron Stasko (Jr.), and Cody Waterhouse (Jr.) were all playmakers for the Bombers this season and will all be back in 2018.

“We lose (Kyle) Kralik and Tekoah (Guedes), which we’ll definitely miss those guys and their leadership, but we also return five lineman and mostly all of our skill guys, so the future is certainly bright for us,” said Walkowiak. “We’re going to continue to do what we do, which is get in the weight room, get stronger and keep developing our skill set. We have to get right back at it together to get right back in this game again next season to try and get over the hump.”