{"id":19347,"date":"2013-11-09T11:29:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T16:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=19347"},"modified":"2013-11-09T11:29:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T16:29:11","slug":"second-half-dooms-unionville-41-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=19347","title":{"rendered":"Second half dooms Unionville, 41-7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neshaminy’s running game too much for Indians in playoffs<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UHSNeshFB2013-3\"<\/a>

Unionville’s Kevin Welch (12) and Mike Sarver (25) attempt to bring down Neshaminy’s D’Andre Pollard Friday, as the Indian fell in the opening round of the PIAA District One AAAA playoffs, 41-7. Jim Gill photo<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/span>
\nLANGHORNE \u2014 Maybe the hints were there.<\/p>\n

With Unionville and Neshaminy tied at the half, 7-7, Friday night\u2019s PIAA District One AAAA opening round playoff game gave all the appearances of going right down to the wire. But then Neshaminy totally dominated the second half, beating the Indians 41-7.<\/p>\n

Still, even at the half \u2014 maybe there were a few red flags: Neshaminy committed nine penalties in the first half, a couple of which reversed long runs by its star running back, D\u2019Andre Pollard (who finished with 266 yards and four scores in the game). Add in the fact that beyond using the fluttering yellow flag, the Indians struggled to contain Pollard and the Unionville running game was struggling to get yards, gaining just 48 yards in the first half, and maybe, in retrospect, the potential for second-half trouble was there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tale of two halves,\u201d Unionville head coach Pat Clark said afterward. \u201cThat was the story. They did the same stuff (in the second half) in the first half, but they executed better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UHSNeshFB2013-2\"<\/a>

Unionville’s Dom DiBiaggio powers in for the lone Indians’ touchdown of the day. Jim Gill photo.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

With far fewer Neshaminy penalties in the second half, Pollard ran amuck using his speed and elusiveness to shred the Unionville defense, much as the halfback has done all season to teams in District One.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kid (Pollard) is an outstanding football player,\u201d Clark said. \u201cHe made some great runs and we didn\u2019t tackle well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worse for the Indians \u2014 who finish the 2013 season 8-3 \u2014 without a sustained running game of their own, it put more pressure on the passing offense, which then also began to struggle \u2014 leading to a pair of interceptions in the second half \u2014 and three turnovers overall.<\/p>\n

What had been a tight, tense contest imploded in the third quarter \u2014 first when Pollard raced 43 yards downfield, and fumbled, ultimately recovered by Neshaminy\u2019s Cole Creighton, seven yards down field. Two Pollard carries later, Neshaminy took the lead, 14-7.<\/p>\n

\"UHSNeshFB2013-1\"<\/a>

Unionville’s Chris Koehler looks for running room against Neshaminy. Jim Gill photo<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

But it was the next play \u2014 on the ensuing kickoff that may have set off a series of unrecoverable events for Unionville. The Indians\u2019 Garrett Scargill \u2014 who otherwise had his usual solid game, rushing for 75 yards on 16 carries \u2014 lost the handle while returning the ensuing kickoff. Neshaminy\u2019s Matt Bianchino recovered the ball on the Unionville 31. Two plays later, Pollard raced 31 yards for the score and very suddenly, it was 21-7, and all the momentum had flipped to Neshaminy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fumble hurt \u2014 because it is a short field,\u201d Clark said. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t swing momentum back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments later \u2014 quarterback Alex Pechin \u2014 16-of-32 for 134 yards and two interceptions \u2014 was picked off by Boniface Stevens, who returned the ball to the Unionville 20. Two plays later Denny Lord scored from five yards out to make the score 28-7.<\/p>\n

Forced to largely throw in the final quarter, Unionville couldn\u2019t get sustained offense. Turning the ball over on downs on their own 38, the Indians were burned for another long TD run by Pollard on the next play, effectively putting the game out of reach.<\/p>\n

Although the ending was difficult, Unionville again had a strong season \u2014 and it\u2019s only losses came at the hands of the No. 1 (Garnet Valley), No. 2 (West Chester Rustin), and No. 4 (Neshaminy) seeded teams in PIAA District One AAAA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud of our kids,\u201d Clark said. \u201cOur senior class, over the last four years, has upheld the kind of things we want to do, upheld the traditions of our program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neshaminy’s running game too much for Indians in playoffs By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times LANGHORNE \u2014 Maybe the hints were there. With Unionville and Neshaminy tied at the half, 7-7, Friday night\u2019s PIAA District One AAAA opening round playoff game gave all the appearances of going right down to the wire. But then Neshaminy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[31,32,4450,935,110,7427],"class_list":["post-19347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","tag-football","tag-indians","tag-neshaminy","tag-piaa-district-one","tag-playoffs","tag-unionville-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}