Springfield Shuts Out Haverford

The chant rose up about the middle of the third quarter. It had a feeble quality as it tried to rise through the thick, moist Saturday night air, though the words were resounding: “Overrated, Overrated, Overrated,” sung by the handful of students standing in the corner of the visitor’s stands.

Springfield wanted to deliver a message that had a deeper, more tangible quality when the Cougars traveled to Haverford High School. Springfield entered the game , yet the Cougars felt they were the ones that had something to prove. Haverford was playing for its postseason life. A 1-3 start would make it more difficult to reach the PIAA District 1 Class AAAA playoffs. Springfield was playing to legitimize itself among the top Central League teams.

The Cougars accomplished their mission in a dominating 27-0 victory over a good Haverford High School team. Springfield moved to 4-0 for the first time since 1994, and 3-0 in the Central League, while Haverford fell to 1-3 overall and 0-3 league.

“We talked to our kids the whole week about this and being prepared,” Cougars’ first-year coach Tom Kline said. “Our kids were as determined to win this as the coaching staff was in believing they could win. There’s nothing pretty about what we do, we’ll admit that. But we’re a team that’s not worried about stats, as long as we win.”

The Cougars are also not a team you make mistakes against. But that’s exactly what Haverford did. The Fords fumbled away one possession inside their 10, which resulted in a 10-yard touchdown toss from Ryan Strain to John Wise. Springfield followed up again on another Haverford High miscue, when a snap flew over the punter’s head and the ball was recovered around the Fords’ six-yard line.

One player later, Springfield’s Aaron Coyne ripped through the Haverford defense for a six-yard touchdown. Springfield added to that on its second possession of the second half when Mike Dougherty chugged into the end zone from a yard out. Immediately after that, Haverford got the ball back on one of the Fords’ five turnovers. Rob Murphy did the honors, continuously churning his legs before breaking free from a cluster of grabbing Haverford defenders for a 12-yard touchdown run.

The play was set up by a 32-yard connection from Cougars’ quarterback Ryan Strain to Warren Allen. Dougherty’s score was possible due to a 30-yard pass from Strain to Matt Reichert.

“We saw Haverford was a little vulnerable to the pass, and we felt we could pass against them,” Strain said. “We heard some underrated comments about us not playing anyone good. That got us going. Beating a good team tells me we’re going to be a dangerous team ourselves. We needed to say something, we’re not overrated, we do belong [among the top-7 team] teams in the area.”

This game was never in doubt.

“We were getting criticized for not playing anyone, I think we did tonight, Haverford wanted to bury us and we wanted to bury them, it worked out,” said the Cougars’ linebacker Tyler Morrissey. “This was a total team effort on both sides of the ball.”