Turnovers didn’t necessarily cost them the game.
But they sure didn’t help.
The Council Rock South football team turned the ball over five times en route to a 21-7 loss to Neshaminy.
The first play from scrimmage set the tone, as CR South quarterback Chase Ennis fumbled, and the Redskins recovered.
“Losing the ball on the first play of the game was rough,” Ennis said. “I lost some confidence after that, honestly. But it happens, and you battle back.”
Neshaminy didn’t score on the series, but chewed up a lot of time with possession, a theme that repeated itself throughout the game.
The Redskins got on the board in the first quarter when Markus Barnett scored on a 16-yard touchdown run. Kaden Nicastro’s extra point attempt was blocked by the Golden Hawks.
Neshaminy’s second touchdown of the evening came in the second quarter, when quarterback Colin Baker hit Ashton Lovelace for a 40-yard TD throw. The extra point was good and the Redskins went into halftime with a 13-0 lead.
The Golden Hawks got on the board in the third quarter. Ennis connected with Bryan Rabatin for a 29-pass that set up a two-yard touchdown run by Chase Myers.
Myers, a junior running back, led the Golden Hawks with two catches for 36 yards. He also had six carries for eight yards.
Neshaminy’s final tally of the evening came in the fourth quarter, a 13-yard run by Jullian Hammond. Baker threw to Nick Buchys for a two-point conversion.
“They came at us with everything and it was tough on defense,” said CR South senior Connor Omlor, a linebacker. “They have some big kids on that team and they came out firing and running it right down our throats. Credit to them, they did a really good job. We stuck with them for a little while, but eventually they got the upper hand.
“Definitely, turnovers hurt us. That’s been a problem this year and last year, too. We’ve got to work on that and hopefully we’ll improve on that area.
“I was really impressed with our defense. We swarmed the ball together and played as one unit, and that was our game plan. We knew they were going to try to run the ball and we wanted to have 11 guys go to the ball and we were able to do that most of the time.”
The Golden Hawks turned the ball over five times. They lost three fumbles and Ennis threw two interceptions.
“We struggled in the first half a lot,” Ennis said. “We had a lot of miscommunications. We bounced back in the second half, but it wasn’t enough.”
CR South had a come-from-behind win over William Tennent in Week One.
“I thought we could do it again,” said Ennis, who is also a pitcher for the CR South baseball team. “But Neshaminy’s a tough team. You can’t make the kinds of mistakes that we made and expect to win against them. But we’ll learn from this and move on.
“When the score was 13-7, I was feeling good. I thought we had a good shot at tying it up. We came back against Tennent last week so when Neshaminy scored first I figured we’ve been there before and we pulled it out so I still thought we had a shot at a comeback, but Neshaminy was really tough.
“This one loss isn’t going to kill our season. We’re going to watch some film, keep moving forward and be ready for Pennsbury next week.”
Both CR South and Neshaminy went 2-8 last season, uncharacteristic for these squads.
“This is a big win for us,” said Barnett. “Last year we went 2-8 so one more win and we’ll be better than last year. We had a lot of turnovers and they were important. CR South played very hard and we had to stay strong to fight them off.”
CR South (1-1) will be back in action on Friday, taking on Pennsbury (1-1) at Harry S Truman, while Neshaminy (2-0) travels to Downingtown West (1-1) for a non-league game.
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