Early Big Plays Key as CB South Tops CB East

Written by: Don Leypoldt on Friday, September 13th, 2024. Follow Don Leypoldt on Twitter.

To run in the September 19th Bucks County Herald

Big plays made a big difference in Friday night’s game at CB East.

The host Patriots had two plays of 25 or more yards. The CB South Titans had five, four of which came in the game’s first 12 and a half minutes. In an otherwise competitive rivalry contest, the big plays helped South (4-0) stay unbeaten in their 34-15 win over East (2-2 in the SOL National debut for both teams.

Quarterback Owen Pinkerton raced 39 yards for a touchdown on the game’s fourth play, to put South up 6-0. An East pooch punt pinned South at their own one, but the Titans marched 99 yards on ten plays, scoring on the second quarter’s opening play with a Pinkerton to Danny Gies 52 yard touchdown.

A two-play sequence in the middle of the second quarter nearly sunk East. Jimmy Wade partially blocked the first of his two punts, giving South the ball at the Patriot 40. Kaden Kube took the first down carry to the house for a 20-0 Titan lead.

“Jimmy Wade is a very dynamic football player,” said Titan head coach Tom Hetrick. “When good things are happening, you can sort of assume that Jimmy Wade is near there. He has an instinct that you can’t coach, he has a nose for the football and he just makes plays.”

“Danny Gies is a very fluid kid with great ball skills and a great catch radius,” Hetrick continued. “The touchdown that Kube ran was on him. They blew it up at the point of attack but he saw something and got it.”

But East responded immediately, with sophomore bruiser Mike Price busting an 80-yard touchdown run one play later. The conversion cut the Titan lead to 20-8, the halftime score.

Pinkerton and Gavin Graham added touchdown runs to put South up 34-8 early in the fourth. East countered with a 12 play, 70 yard drive that ended with a six-yard touchdown.

Pinkerton, South’s leading ground gainer with 136 yards on 20 carries, broke the century mark for the third straight week. Sophomores Graham and Cape combined with senior Kube to pick up 144 more yards on 18 carries.

“When you can give three different guys the ball ten or twelve times, it allows them to stay fresh. The basis of what we’re trying to do is control the line of scrimmage,” Hetrick explained, “and when you have three guys who can keep pressing it in there, there is something to be said for being able to rotate them through. And they all run really hard.”

East moved the ball into South territory multiple times. But three times in the second quarter, the Titan pass rush broke up or hurried a third or fourth down Patriot pass to end the drive. Eddie Bowen had a big break up of a Logan Simkiss fourth down pass, giving the Titans the ball at their 20 late in the second.

“I think everyone plays their part and everyone has their responsibility,” Bowen explained. “The coaches always say that and we coach them up. When you see everyone make their play, you see success on the field with the defense.

“They ran double tight, so we made some adjustments to that,” Bowen added, “but other than that, we still played CB South defense and did our parts. It worked.”

Price rushed 23 times for 159 yards for his second 100-yard game in three weeks. Simkiss completed 10 of 24 passes for 95 yards.

Entering the game, South had a +3 turnover ratio while East’s was negative. The Patriots took care of the football, not committing a turnover until Simkiss’ meaningless Hail Mary on the last play of the game.

CB South has a chance for a CB sweep; they host 3-1 CB West next Friday. CB East heads to Pennsbury, who has an identical 2-2 record.

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