Four Downs: 4 big takes from Week 3
Four biggest takeaways from Week 3 of the 2022 high school football season:
1ST DOWN
It’s “Backyard Brawl” week for the first time in three years and the excitement level should be through the roof for Friday’s Wyomissing at Berks Catholic game. It doesn’t feel that way.
For most of a decade, after Berks Catholic was formed from a merger of Central Catholic and Holy Name, this was the game in Berks. It created some of the greatest football games in Berks history, none more exciting than the Saints’ 19-14 victory in 2014 when Isaac Lutz made a pair of incredible catches on the game-winning drive.
The Saints, being 0-3 for the first time, and the Spartans, playing again at a state-championship level, seem miles apart right now.
The players on both sides will be excited; most on both sides have never faced each other at this level. This is the game they grew watching and hoping to play in. Whether the Saints can rise to the occasion and make it a game remains a question.
2ND DOWN
Is Amier Burdine the most exciting player in Berks football?
The Reading High quarterback/safety is making a strong case for that title after his third straight 100-yard rushing game in a thrilling 42-35 win over Red Lion.
Burdine ran for 113 yards and passed for 147 and three TDs as the Red Knights knocked off a Red Lion team that had won its first two games. He has had a hand in eight of Reading’s 13 TDs — six passing, two running — is second in rushing in Section 1 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League and has the highest yards-per-carry average (8.0) among Section 1 leaders.
The Red Knights have won back-to-back games for the first time since starting 4-0 in 2019. Burdine, then a freshman, threw the game-winning TD pass in the last of those four wins, 25-23 over Twin Valley.
3RD DOWN
Hamburg created a lot of a preseason buzz among coaches in Section 5 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, and now we see why.
The Hawks are 3-0 and one of the highest-scoring teams in the state after beating Eastern York 54-34. They’re averaging 59 points, a figure topped only by Jersey Shore (62.6) and Danville (59.6).
Senior quarterback Xander Menapace was one of the reasons coaches were pointing to the Hawks, and he has lived up to the billing by running for four TDs and throwing for five.
Pierce Mason has scored a Berks-leading 11 TDs, four of them coming Friday when he matched the program rushing record with 292 yards.
The Hawks haven’t gone 4-0 in 16 years, when they opened 6-0.
They could face their sternest test yet Friday in their Section 5 opener against Annville-Cleona (2-1). In two weeks they could be playing for the section championship when they meet Lancaster Catholic, which is 3-0.
4TH DOWN
With league play about to begin in the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 3 remains the most intriguing, and most wide open, of the five sections.
In a seven-team section without an overwhelming preseason favorite six have winning records and two — Elizabethtown and Solanco — are 3-0. Only Daniel Boone, which dropped its first two games, is below .500.
Elizabethtown has posted 19 TDs in three weeks and Solanco has scored impressive wins over Lampeter-Strasburg and Cocalico, as well as Class 6A Penn Manor.
Solanco opens league play Friday at Ephrata in what looms as a pivotal early test for each.
The three Berks entries — Boone, Twin Valley and Fleetwood — have their work cut out for them but don’t count them out just yet.
