by Duke Helm
RUNNINGBACKS:
Kobe Brish of Schuylkill Haven scored 4 td’s for the 3rd consecutive week and now has 17 on the season and 98 for his career. He remains in 3rd place all-time for career td’s behind former Hurricane Zach Barket who scored 113 td’s from 2005-08 and the District leader, James Mungro of ES South who scored 115 td’s from 1993-96. Brish is in 3rd place all-time in the District for career rushing yards with his 6,756 yards. District career leader Mungro has 8,432 yards and Barket has 8,325 yards. QB Jaden Leiby of North Schuylkill broke the school’s career rushing record last week. Leiby now has 2,678 yards which surpass the 2,639 yards Zach Cress piled up from 2005-08. Leiby has scored 28 career td’s and has thrown 14 td passes. Teammate Zack Chowansky reached 20 career td’s this past week. Andrew Darno of Notre Dame and Rhasaan Jacobs of ES North each scored 4 td’s in their games last week. Darno also threw for 237 yards and 2 td passes, while Jacobs rushed for 202 yards in their win over Pleasant Valley. Both players have been moved to QB during the season from their wide receiver position. Tavion Banks of Bethlehem Catholic scored 3 td’s last week and now has 63 for his career. He moves ahead of Tim Barlok’s 62 td’s (1996-98) and into 3rd place all-time at BECA. He’s 1 td behind 2nd place Michael McDaniel’s 64 td’s (2012-14). CJ Selby of Jim Thorpe joins the “40 td” club with the 2 td’s he scored last week. Selby has rushed for 3,232 yards and scored 41 td’s in his career. He needs 172 yards to break Jason Figura’s career school record of 3,403 yards. Figura played from 2001-04 and also owns the career td record with his 51 td’s. Kaleb Monaco of PM West returned to the line-up last week and rushed for 129 yards and a td. He now has 30 career td’s and is 4 behind record-holder Franklyn Quiteh. Quiteh scored 34 td’s from 2007-08. Nick Henry of Northwestern has scored 16 td’s this year. The junior now has 30 career td’s. Collon Luckenbill of Pine Grove rushed for 230 yards and 2 td’s and teammate Dalton Kintzel rushed for 179 yards and a td in their win over previously unbeaten Williams Valley. Luckenbill has 999 yards rushing and Kintzel has 934 yards on the season. Chase Herb of Tri-Valley rushed for 225 yards and scored 3 td’s in their win over Millersburg
QUARTERBACKS:
Deven Bollinger of Northwestern enters the all-time top 10 District career passing yardage list. Bollinger is in 10th place with 6,460 yards. Jake Cirillo of ES South drops out of the top ten and actually moves down 2 spots to 12th place. Moving into 11th place is Anthony Harris of Nazareth with 6,453 yards. Cirillo the current ESU starting QB, threw for 6,438 yards from 2013-16. Jared Jenkins of Freedom also went over 6,000 yards passing for a career and now has 6,114 yards. He ‘s thrown 61 career td’s. Bollinger, Harris and Jenkins each threw for 1 td last week to move out of ties on the all-time list. Bollinger is 4th with 84 career td passes, Harris is 12th and Jenkins is now in 15th place. I inadvertently had Bollinger tied for 3rd place with Tyler Smith of Wilson, when actually he was tied for 4th with Tre Jordan of Pius X/Notre Dame. You would think this year’s trio who have combined to throw 211 career td passes would be the highest yearly trio in the District, but their not. The trio of 2011 threw for a whopping 232 td passes in their careers if we count AJ Long of Pius X. Long only played his freshman and sophomore years threw for 74 td’s before moving out of the area. Brendan Nosovitch of Central Catholic threw for a District record 106 td’s and Dan Harding of Nazareth, threw 52 td’s. Last year’s trio of Cole DeFranco of Notre Dame (99), Logan Edmond of Southern Lehigh (61) and Ethan Parvel of Whitehall /Emmaus (56) combined to throw 218 td passes. The 2015 trio of Tre Jordon of Pius X/Notre Dame (83), Doug Erney of Liberty (70) and Devante Cross of Parkland (66) threw for a combined 217 td’s. In 2009 this trio threw for 210 combined td passes in their careers: Tyler Smith of Wilson (87), Corey Cinicola of Jim Thorpe (64) and Anthony Casciano of Pius X (59). As for the highest yardage total for a trio that also belongs to the 2011 players of Nosovitch, Long and Harding with 21,342 yards. Our current trio has thrown for 19,027 yards so far. The other 3 trio’s mentioned above are all in between these along with the 2006 trio of DJ Lenehan of Wilson (7,765), Cole Hildabrnat of Pius X (6,991) and Dan Persa of Liberty (5,875) who threw for a combined career total of 20,631 yards. Scott Schwalm of Minersville now owns 3 of the 4 school’s single-season passing records. He’s completed 107 out of 194 for 1,600 yards which are all school records. Schwalm has thrown 16 td’s this year and 29 for his career. He needs 2 more td passes to break Nick Melusky’s single-season td pass record of 17 which he set in 2004 and 3 more td passes to break Brandon Marshall’s career record of 31 which he set from 1993-96. Schwalm leads the District with his 1,600 yards. Bryce Herb of Williams Valley threw for 329 yards and 4 td’s in their 1st loss of the season last week. Herb has thrown for 945 yards and 12 td’s in the last 3 games and now has 1,522 yards and a District leading 23 td passes on the season. Lawson Bray of PM West went over 2,000 yards passing for his career and now has 2,024 yards. A couple of sophomore QB’s had big games last week as both their teams won. Wilson’s Cayden Stem threw for 302 yards and 3 td’s in their win over Saucon Valley and Ty Tremba of Parkland threw for 301 yards and 2 td’s in their win over Whitehall. Each QB also scored a td. Stem also went over 1,000 yards passing for the season and now has 1,131 yards and 13 td passes. Another sophomore QB Cole Transue of Easton also went over 1,000 yards passing in their first loss of the season vs Freedom. Transue has thrown for 1,113 yards and 11 td passes this year. Junior, Matt Rauscher of Central Catholic threw for 214 yards and 2td’s and also scored 3 td’s in their win over Emmaus. Rauscher has thrown for 1,095 yards and 10 td’s this season.
RECEIVERS:
Nick Johnston of Parkland caught 9 passes for school-record 237 yards and 2 td’s last week. The old record of 204 yards was held by former NFL tight end Tim Massaquoi. In 1998. the 6’4″ 195 lb. sophomore caught 8 passes for 204 yards and 3 td’s in a 47-33 District 11 semi-final playoff win over Nazareth. Allen Negrete of Whitehall caught 9 more passes vs Parkland to extend his District leading season catches to 44. Negrete also went over 1,500 career receiving yards and now has 1,553. Gabe Davis of Minersville is in 2nd with 42 receptions and leads the District in yardage with 716 yards. Jesse Engle of Williams Valley caught 2 more td passes last week and now leads the District with 10. Engle has an amazing 18 td grabs out of 36 career catches. That’s 1 td for every 2 catches. He’ll have the best District ratio when he meets the criteria of 40 career receptions. Engle is only a junior, so it will be hard to maintain that ratio for the rest of this year and next season. There are 6 other players that have caught 8 td passes this year. They are Davis from Minersville, Bo Raho of Williams Valley, Matt Kistler of Tamaqua, Kevin Schenk of Pottsville, Christian Greggo of Notre Dame and Chad Parton of Salisbury. Nathan Stefanik of Nazareth moves up one spot to 7th place all-time in the District with his 152 career receptions. He moves ahead of Jason Grow of Williams Valley who caught 150 passes from 1987-90. He now has 2,079 career receiving yards which puts him in 17th all-time in the District. Brian Ayers of Freeland, Wade Williams of Pius X and Brad Walters of Wilson all move down a spot to 18th thru 20th respectfully. Nate Boyle of Tamaqua became the Blue Raiders all-time reception leader. Boyle now has 89 career catches which are 3 more than previous record-holder Vince Boyer’s 86 catches (1996-98). He needs 28 yards to break Anthony Bumbulsky’s career reception yardage record of 1,399 yards that he set from 2007-09. Jared Russell of Northampton has caught at least 1 td pass in the last 5 games. Jayden Cruz of Williams Valley went over 1,000 yards receiving for his career and now has 1,056 yards.
