Tonight, Coatesville could do almost no wrong in a 55-17 demolition of an overmatched West Chester Henderson squad.
In a game where the Red Raiders pulled their starters before halftime, scored 48 points before half, and special teams scored twice. There was an occurrence that out shined all of this- Coatesville quarterback Ricky Ortega broke Pat Devlin’s Ches-Mont League record for career yards passing. It occurred on a 3 yard pass to Damonte Reason.
Right off the bat, the Warriors from Henderson were in for a long night- Dapree Bryant took the opening kickoff 84 yards for a score. It went from bad to worse as Dametrius McClain-Jackson scored from 19 yards out, to make it 14-0.
Coatesville scored 3 more touchdowns to make it 34-0- Two passes from Ortega to Bryant (22 & 10 yards) sandwiched a McClain-Jackson score. Ortega’s second touchdown pass was set up by a Shamaur Hall interception.
Henderson scored their lone first half touchdown on a Jon Hamm 12 yard interception return of Rhyel Eubanks. Eubanks would redeem himself with a 57 yard pass to Abdul Stewart. Amir Kennedy retuned a Henderson punt 85 yards right before halftime to put Coatesville up 48-7, and invoke the mercy rule.
Henderson did add 10 points in the second half- an Eddie Smink 38 yard pass to John Herman-Harsch set up a Pat Esemplare touchdown run of 28 yards, and Joe Shur kicked a 23 yard field goal.
Freshman reserve quarterback Harrison Susi scored from 11 yards out for Coatesville for the final margin.
Ortega threw for 75 yards and 2 scores (9-12 passing) on his record setting night. As a team, the Red Raiders accumulated 213 yards passing and 126 rushing (339 total)
