Haverford Falls To Springfield 27-0

The signs were all there for everyone to see and know. There was no hiding it. No getting around it. And there was no way it could continue, if had hoped to beat a quality undefeated team like Springfield.

Yet it did.

Turnovers that have plagued the Fords throughout this season came back again to sting a number of times, spelling a 27-0 loss to Springfield in a game postponed by rain and played Saturday night at Haverford’s new refurbished field.

The loss drops the Fords to 1-3 overall and 0-3 in the Central League, while Springfield improved to a pristine 4-0 and 3-0 in the league.

Five turnovers are what did in the Fords.

“Turnovers, turnovers, period,” Fords’ senior two-way lineman Dylan Cullen said. “Too many turnovers killed us. Springfield is good, but they’re not 27-0 better than us. The goal this season was to iron out all the wrinkles, and to iron everything out. But we smooth out one thing, and something else get wrinkled. We haven’t put it all together. We should be a lot better than this.”

It’s been a familiar lament this season for the Fords.

A turnover in the first quarter led to a Ryan Strain-to-John Wise touchdown pass, and an errant snap on a punt attempt led to another Cougars’ score and a 13-0 edge.

“Turnovers is exactly where to begin,” Fords’ coach Joe Gallagher said. “Part of our pregame speech to the team was that the team gets hurts least by turnovers deserves to win. We got into this rut, and it’s not good, not good. Even the times we got something going, we’d get the kind of turnover that kills you. We couldn’t get anything going, but what I liked is we kept playing hard.”

Haverford High School has turned the ball over 11 times in its first four games. Senior Mike Clancy has continued playing out of his natural position, running back, replacing the injured Eddie Durkin, whose right hand is going to be examined this week.

Springfield had a mere three first downs in the first half, the byproduct of working off a short field.

The Cougars didn’t need the short field in the second half. Fueled by quarterback Ryan Strain, tailback Rob Murphy, wide receiver Matt Reichert and fullback Mike Dougherty, Springfield pounded through Haverford for two more scores. Dougherty scored on a one-yard plunge, made possible on a 30-yard connection from Strain to Reichert. Murphy added an insurance score early in the fourth quarter.

“I hope we’re still a dangerous team,” Gallagher said. “The message is quite simple: We have eight games to go to definitely make this still a decent season. We can still do that. Not all is lost.”