Quick start keys Spring-Ford's win

On Friday night on their home field, the Spring-Ford Rams took on the Pope John Paul II Panthers in a varsity football game, and Spring-Ford coach Chad Brubaker had some concerns about the game.

"We didn't have a great week at practice," Brubaker said. "I felt like all week I was concerned that we weren't as focused as we needed to be."

While Brubaker was still not pleased after the game, he was happy that the Rams came out on top with a 33-21 victory.

Leading off the scoring for Spring-Ford, and scoring two more throughout the game, was Andrew Scanlan with a 27-yard touchdown catch from quarterback Hank Coyne. By the end of the first quarter, SF was up 21-0.

The Panthers struggled throughout the entire game with running the ball.

"We’re just not running the football enough," said PJP head coach Mike Santillo. "We got to become more effective on running the football; I’ve been saying it every week, but eventually it will kick in."

At the end of the half, SF was up 24-0 thanks to a field goal.

With nine minutes remaining in the third quarter, PJP scored a 31-yard touchdown, bringing the score to 24-6, and this is where Coach Brubaker's concern came into play.

"I was certainly nervous or concerned with how we practiced during the week," he said. "And it showed on the field tonight."

With 6:38 left in the third quarter, PJP scored again, and following a two-point conversion ran in by PJP's quarterback, Spring-Ford’s lead was cut to 24-14.

"We felt like we came out strong," said Brubaker. "And then kind of started spinning our tires and I don’t understand why that is."

Spring-Ford added a field goal and scored its final touchdown with three minutes left in the third quarter, but missed their extra point goal. Going into the fourth quarter, PJP scored their final touchdown, with 9:54 remaining to end the scoring for the night.

While Spring-Ford got the victory, Brubaker was not happy.

"Well, like I said, a W is a W, but we’re not happy with it," he said. "We didn’t play well at all. We had a good first quarter and then near the end of the first quarter.... one good thing we did was we limited our turnovers, but we really didn’t play well at all the rest of the night. The only part of our game that we talked about from last week to improve upon was our kicking coverage and our kicking game, and our kicking game was really good tonight."

The Rams face Upper Perkiomen next week, and the coach has some reservations about that game.

"If we play the way we played tonight,” he said, “I’m really concerned about it. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do."