PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. – Behind the area on the sidelines where the La Salle College High School football team stood, a weathered penny lie buried into the artificial surface, with the heads side facing upward.
Supposedly, pennies facing heads side up bring good luck. But fate was not ready to yield the Explorers a lucky day.
Bergen Catholic (1-0) got a 306-yard passing effort from field general John Germano and two-time PIAA AAAA state finalist La Salle (1-1) had trouble keeping up with the Crusaders’ speed and spread offensive attack in a humbling 41-17 loss Saturday afternoon at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School.
BC, a 16-time New Jersey football state champion, wasted little time in flashing and dashing its way over, around, and through the La Salle defense en route to 396 yards of offense – mostly through the air – using an up-tempo offense.
“We really always want to play with that type of pace,” said BC head coach Nunzio Campanile. “We’re always trying to keep the opponent on its toes. We want to be certain the other team is as uncomfortable as possible at all times.”
La Salle barely had time to settle in before Bergen began its offensive assault. In just four plays after picking off La Salle’s Matt Magarity, Bergen had a 6-0 lead thanks to a Germano four-yard touchdown run. But the Crusaders were just getting warmed up.
After La Salle went three-and-out, it took three plays for Bergen to find paydirt again. Germano hit J.J. Rulsar for an 87-yard touchdown pass to push the lead to 13-0 and then recovered the ensuing onsides kick. Six plays later, Bergen was in the end zone again on a 15-yard connection from Germano to Charles Wingate.
“They have great speed and quickness,” said La Salle head coach Drew Gordon. “It’s hard to replicate their speed in practice.”
The Explorers seemed to quell the bleeding a little bit with a small rally, slicing the BC lead from 20-0 to 20-9 on a Tim Wade three-yard run and a Ryan Winslow 32-yard field goal. Wade’s touchdown run was one of the few scant highlights on the day. Yards were hard to come by for #33 – in three and a half quarters, he ran for 35 yards on 19 carries.
But any momentum La Salle had built up deflated quicker than a balloon with a hole in it. Winslow’s field goal came with 1:46 left in the half, but that was more than enough time for the Crusaders to break the Explorers’ backs. Beginning at its own 20, the red and gold marched 65 yards in just three plays – all Germano passes – to the La Salle 15. Two plays after an Explorer timeout to stop the bleeding, Bergen lodged the proverbial dagger in the blue and gold’s heart as Germano found John Tsimis from four yards out and a 27-9 lead.
Five plays. Eighty yards. All in a mere 51.8 seconds. Who needs those two-minute drills, anyway?
“Bergen Catholic will test you every play,” Gordon said.
The Crusaders tacked on two more touchdowns in the second half – a James Dawson two-yard run and a 15-yard pass from Germano to Tsimis – to push the advantage to 41-9.
Using its reserves, La Salle capped the game scoring with a one-yard touchdown run by Jared Herrmann with 2:00 left in the contest. Herrmann’s run capped a 12-play, 80-yard, 4:17 march which saw five total first downs and back-up field general Chris Kane connect on all four of his pass attempts.
All told, La Salle finished with 211 yards of offense and 11 first downs. Magarity connected on 11-of-19 passes for 79 yards with the one interception. Wade paced the Explorer ground attack, which finished with 65 yards on 34 carries. Herrmann added 23 yards on seven carries and Kane threw for 57 yards. Sean Coleman caught five passes for 39 yards and Colin Buckley snagged three passes for 44 yards.
Germano’s banner day also saw him add 16 yards on 12 carries. Dawson ran for 22 yards on six carries and Michael Gerst added 27 yards on six totes. Tsimis caught seven passes for 111 yards and two touchdowns and Kulsar added two receptions for 98 yards. Bergen was flagged eight times for 45 yards – about the only negative from the Crusaders’ season opener.
16 Responses
Surprised by pace of the game and final differential; this was a team LaSalle went toe to toe with last year on their field losing 22-21 in the last minute of the game….. and Bergen was allegedly rebuilding!!
Buddy…if you go on the District 1 website I believe it explains the teams gain points and the tie breaker rules and what I get out of it is t
hat only regular season games count.
I would imagine there are a series of tie breakers like head to head, etc, etc and again I would be surprised if any league in the PIAA used reason and/or out of state games as that would be an advantage or disadvantage to the teams that play those types of games. It just would not be fair and even.
It does as far as the District one seedings are concerned. They have a point system awarded on wins & size of school playing against. Doesn’t matter if out of league or out of state. How does PCL & PPL determine who is seeded where in their respective championship playoffs? Simply wins & loses? What if a tie in the win & lose column?
I can’t see why any out of league or out of state games should have anything at all to do with seeding within the PIAA tournament/playoffs. I would be very surprised to find out different.
District 12 has no seeding points for 4A. The top 4 league teams make the PCL playoffs and the winner gets in the PIAA tournament. Simple as that.
@Buddy, it doesn’t count in the PCL and it doesn’t count for points either. The Catholic League is alone, by itself. The winner from the league games goes on to play the Public champion from Philly for the district championship (really the city championship for you old heads). La Salle lost to Bergen last year too. Didn’t matter. They won the Catholic championship and then won district 12 championship
@Buddy
Thanks for the clear up. That’s what I meant. I meant to say that La Salle’s PCL standings were uneffected by this loss to Bergen. However, I am not sure about the seeding points for state playoffs, because Bergen is an out of state game. I thought it could only affect state/national rankings. But I could be wrong, I really don’t know.
Don Bosco is currently the #1 ranked team in the nation. From what I understand a lot of teams in their area don’t even want to play them anymore. If a team is losing by 7 touchdowns at the half, it’s a little demoralizing. Increasingly more teams might start blacklisting them as a form of protest.
It doesn’t count within the PCL standings, but I believe it counts towards accumulating seeding points for the playoof scenerio.
I think La Salle’s weaknesses were exposed big time in this game. Good thing it doesn’t really count. Kudos to Bergen. They were one of the best high school football teams I have seen in a while. They were extremely well coached, well-sized, and fast. If they are the #2 team in Jersey, behind Don Bosco, I’m afraid to see what Don Bosco is like.
Texans linebacker Brian cushing played there. They’re a pretty decent team from northern jersey
Actually, it’s N.Jersey 6, S.E. PA 0. Forgot about the game last year between St. Joe’s Prep and St. Peter’s Prep. St. Peter’s won big. Yeah Deo, it was definitely the ’03 team. The Prep was ranked 3rd, Don Bosco 2nd, and De La Salle 1st. If I’m not mistaken North Penn was ranked 8th that same year. We had 2 teams from S.E. PA in the top 10 final rankings! Saw the Prep play at Plymouth-Whitemarsh against O’hara in the PCL final. Originally, I thought they were overhyped, but after seeing them I changed my mind. That team had great team speed and a lot of talent. They were dynamite. Meanwhile, N. Penn was a CB West-esque power team with a lot of talent. But they never met in the playoffs since the PCL had not yet joined the PIAA. Would have been an amazing matchup.
My son was on that 03 Prep team (soph – not much playing time) and either 03 or 04 USA Today had Prep ranked 3rd nationally behind Don Bosco I believe…not sure though.
Yikes! Is Bergen Catholic that good or is North Penn having that much of an off year? Hey PCL Proud…. You’re right; St. Joe’s Prep lost a home and home to Don Bosco a few years ago. O’hara got annhilated by Bosco in a single game a few years back. So now with this LaSalle series it seems it’s N.Jersey 5 S.E. PA 0. S.E. PA hasn’t had a truly legit team since the ’03 St. Joe’s Prep and North Penn teams.
North Jersey private Catholic schools are at another level as I don’t remember Lasalle or even St Joes (in their heyday) ever winning one of those matchups.