By Kendall Patterson
Staff Writer
It has been a long time coming for Chester County Football, but they celebrated a win against the Liberty Tech Crusaders.
After losing a playoff game in the 2018 season, all games in the 2019 season and the first four games of this year, the Eagles broke a 15-game losing streak on the road during Friday night lights.
Getting the ball first, the Eagles ran the ball for the first touchdown and took the lead 7-0. They never lost that lead either.
The Eagles proved to be very efficient controlling the clock in that drive as they ran it down to about 4 and half minutes left in the first quarter.
Once the Crusaders received the ball, a good deep kickoff toward the sideline by Chester County made the Liberty Tech return man decide whether or not to make the catch for the return, but it proved to be a bad one for his team as he caught it at about the eight yard line and immediately ran out of bounds.
With their back to the endzone, the Crusaders’ offense was stopped by the Eagles’ defense and forced to punt which put the Eagles in good field position at the Crusaders’ 40- yard line.
Unfortunately, the Eagles were not able to take advantage of the field position and score as they got down to about the 19-yard line and got stopped on fourth down.
The Crusaders got the ball back, but just repeated punting again.
This time, once the Eagles got the ball back, they had two long runs by both Ellis Patterson and Judiaz Williamson. Short of the endzone again, but within the 10-yard line, the Eagles kicked a field goal to extend their lead 10-0.
The next punt the Crusaders did was a bad one which put the Eagles at the Crusaders 38, however, a fumble with 6:15 left in the first half turned the ball over back to Liberty.
Chester County’s defense forced Liberty to punt again.
After getting the ball back, the Eagles tried to make another field goal with the ball on the 19-yard line, but it was no good.
Then the half ended with the Crusaders getting sacked.
First drive of the second half resulted in Liberty Tech punting.
The Eagles then made their way down field with major yards by Patterson. The team could have been stopped, but the Crusaders made the mistake of roughing the kicker on a punt for a first down and jumping offsides when it was fourth-and-one on the five.
With no extra point, the Eagles were up 16-0.
The Crusaders were able to score the next drive with penalties against the Eagles helping them get downfield. They went for the two-point conversion but were not successful making the core 16-6.
After a failed field goal attempt by Chester County in the beginning of the fourth quarter, The Crusaders were stuck on their own six-yard line and had to punt, and the last touchdown of the night was a defensive touchdown by the Eagles during the punt. Morgan Quarles blocked the punt with Samuel Hannis recovering the ball in the endzone making the score 22-6.
The game then came to a close as Chester County made the needed stops and ran out the clock.
Quarles was the leader in tackles with a total of seven.
Patterson led the team offensively gaining 263 yards with 31 carries and scoring a touchdown which earned him Player of the Game.
Post game, all the coaches made comments on what factors led to the win.
“Offensive line definitely moved well for us tonight, and our running backs read it very well compared to what we done in the past. It all came together for us tonight,” said Offensive Coordinator DJ Sheets.
“One of our points of emphasis as far as defensive wise was being able to tackle in space, contain the football and contain the athletes, and we did a great job of that tonight,” said Defensive Coordinator Randall Todd.
At the end Head Coach Steve Robinson said that it can be simply said that “We finished one.”
During practice this week Robinson and the other coaches challenged the players both mentally and physically to prepare themselves for Liberty Tech.
“We really stressed this week, not only physical preparation, but so much mental,” Robinson said. “I think our kids responded well to the challenge we gave them this week. Our offensive line did a great job at just keeping the football moving downfield, eating the clock and our runningbacks did a good job of holding onto the ball, hitting the holes and just grinding out those seven- or eight-yard runs. That was the key.”
“I was proud of our kids. Especially the defensive kids. They needed that game. They needed that confidence. We all did,” he said.
