Four Downs: 4 big takes from Week 2
2023 Berks football coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
Four biggest takeaways from Week 2 of the Berks County 2023 football season:
1ST DOWN
The Wilson Bulldogs are in an unfamiliar spot: They haven’t started a football season with a pair of losses since 1993.
Doug Dahms was an assistant coach in those days; Gerry Slemmer was the head coach. The Bulldogs lost to Pottsville 27-0 and to Owen J Roberts 32-6. They rebounded, of course, winning eight of their final nine.
The Bulldogs find themselves 0-2 after a stinging 36-35 overtime loss to Central Dauphin, which went for the two-point conversion in a make-or-break situation after Wilson scored seven to open OT.
The loss was not surprising: Central Dauphin is a top program, is one of the few programs with a series lead over the Bulldogs, and controlled the game with its huge offensive line.
Dahms, needing to replace nine starters on defense, knew it would take time for that unit to come together. In its first two games, against Roman Catholic and Central Dauphin, the Bulldogs have allowed 802 yards and 12 touchdowns.
“It’s going to take us a while to get to where we want to get to,” he said after Friday’s loss. “We’re very inexperienced defensively, and you get into big games like that and (young players) make mistakes.”
In case you’re wondering, Wilson hasn’t begun a season 0-3 since 1965, John Gurski’s second season. The Bulldogs play Martin Luther King on Friday; the Golden Cougars are 1-1 after beating Dobbins 48-0.
“When you score 35 points, that should be enough,” Dahms reasoned. “We’ve gotta do a better job of executing the defense; we’ve gotta get more physical.”
2ND DOWN
No one has a tougher first-month schedule than Berks Catholic. Each of the Saints’ first four opponents were ranked in the Top 10 in the state in their respective classifications heading into Week 2.
One of them, Executive Education Academy, likely won’t remain in the rankings after the Saints pulled off a huge comeback Friday, scoring the final three touchdowns for a 19-14 victory.
Michael Bradley’s 83-yard scoring run with under three minutes to go gave Berks Catholic the lead for good. He also scored earlier in the game.
The Raptors, who won the District 3 Class 2A championship last season, went down the field in the final minutes and ran the last play of the game from the Saints’ 10. A pass was knocked down in the end zone to end the game.
The Saints paid the price for their tough schedule last season when they started 0-4 for the first time. They went on to win five of their final seven games.
They still face an uphill battle. Friday they play Pope John Paul II, which was ranked No. 5 in the state in Class 4A before winning 45-7 at Archbishop Ryan. After that it’s the “Backyard Brawl” with Wyomissing, which is 2-0 and ranked No. 2 in the state in Class 3A.
3RD DOWN
It’s likely no Berks quarterback has ever had a more productive debut than Tyler Shuey.
The Hamburg junior threw for 356 yards in his first start, a 49-14 win over Halifax, and followed up by throwing for 314 yards Friday in a 34-27 win at Warrior Run.
That’s 670 yards, with seven TDs, in his first two games.
In Hamburg’s first 54 seasons only one quarterback threw for over 300 yards in a game.
And this: Shuey was the Hawks leading rusher in each of the first two games. He went for 92 yards on 19 carries at Warrior Run.
4TH DOWN
Fleetwood is easily the most surprising of the five Berks teams off to a 2-0 start.
The Tigers always seem to get tripped up by Conrad Weiser but scored the first 13 points Friday and led all the way in beating the Scouts 30-21.
That’s a significant win: Fleetwood had beaten Weiser just once in13 previous meetings.
The Tigers came into the season on a seven-game losing streak and finished 2-8 a year ago.
They returned 13 starters and picked up several key transfers in the offseason, including Dakota Thomas, one of Kutztown’s top players, and Brate Maddocks, the youngest of the talented Maddocks brothers; he played in Florida last season. Thomas scored three TDs against Weiser.
With Upper Perkiomen up next the Tigers have a chance to reach 3-0 for just the third time in program history; that will give them some headwind going into their Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 3 schedule, which starts with section favorite Twin Valley.
The other Berks teams at 2-0: Exeter, Hamburg, Twin Valley and Wyomissing.