Cocalico hopes to complete unlikely championship run against Exeter

Even after Cocalico’s completed its regular season with a win over Conrad Weiser and a 6-4 record the Eagles didn’t know if they made the 12-team District 3 Class 5A playoff field.

They entered the final week at No. 14 and needed both Spring Grove and Ephrata to lose their final game. The Rockets complied; the Mounts, playing heavily favored Elizabethtown, took their time about it.

When Eagles coach Bryan Strohl and his players returned to their locker room they flipped on a livestream and watched in disbelief as Elizabethtown, clinging to a 35-30 lead, went for it on fourth-and-8 at its own 32.

Strohl held his breath.

The Lancaster-Lebanon League’s best pass-catch combo, Josh Rudy and Braden Cummings, connected on fourth down, the Bears ran out the clock and Cocalico was playoff-bound. One month later the Eagles are preparing for an unlikely championship game appearance.

“We needed a little help along the way,” admitted Strohl.

Cocalico opened districts with a stunning 44-2 win at Elizabethtown, sacking Rudy nine times and shutting down the league’s premier passing attack. Next it knocked off No. 5 Gettysburg, 23-13. Last week it turned the tables on unbeaten Solanco, which it lost to 21-7 in Week 2. The Eagles, again playing air-tight defense and running their Triple-Option to perfection, built a 25-0 lead in route to a 32-8 win.

Playing all of its postseason games on the road, and as the No. 12 seed, hasn’t deterred Cocalico (9-4).

“We felt if we could get in (the playoffs) we could be dangerous,” Strohl said. “(Once) you’re in, seeds don’t matter, anything can happen. Our kids believed that if we got in there wasn’t anybody we weren’t capable of beating.”

Cocalico has been a completely different team in the second half of the season. It enters Friday’s game at Don Thomas Stadium against second-seeded Exeter (12-0) with a six-game winning streak and trying to become the first No. 12 seed to win a District 3 title in any classification.

No team higher than a No. 8 has ever won a championship, and only two No. 8’s — in 170 tournaments, among all classifications — have won.

Cocalico took tough losses to some of the top teams in the Lancaster-Lebanon League: Section 3 champ Solanco, Section 4 and District 3 Class 3A champ Wyomissing, Class 4A finalist Manheim Central and Section 4 runner-up Lampeter-Strasburg. Those four combined to go 37-3 in the regular season and are 6-2 in the postseason.

Cocalico fell to 3-4 after a frustrating 38-7 loss at Wyomissing. Strohl was disheartened because he didn’t think his team gave itself a chance to compete against the Spartans by fumbling the ball away three times in the first quarter. He was not thinking about a district championship at that point.

“I was so frustrated because I felt we hadn’t fixed a lot of things that had been a problem,” he said.

The main problem was turnovers: Cocalico was minus-10 in takeaways at the point. Since then it is plus-8. The Eagles haven’t turned the ball over in three playoff games.

Strohl saw the makings of a turnaround in Week 9 at Berks Catholic. The teams, each one loss away from being eliminated from district contention, went into halftime tied 10-10. The Eagles came out of the locker room a different team. They held the Saints to two first downs and 28 total yards in the second half. Their offensive line took charge, paving the way for Sam Steffey to slam his way to 123 second-half yards and two TDs. Steffey finished with 42 carries and 234 yards; Cocalico won 31-10.

“Our defense played lights-out against a good offense,” Strohl said. “We were able to get some things rolling on offense. That night it was Sam, Sam and more Sam.”

Cocalico has used that formula ever since. Steffey, who has 1,728 rushing yards, and quarterback Josh Myer get the bulk of the carries. Myer almost never throws. And the defense dominates.

In three playoff games Cocalico is allowing 136 yards per game and 1.4 yards per rushing attempt. It has allowed three touchdowns in its last five games.

Defensive end Chuckie Drain has been a force; has has 26 tackles for loss and is one of the L-L’s top linemen. Linebacker Tyler Angstadt runs down plays all over the field; he has 115 tackles.

Cocalico is ranked second in the league in rushing defense, fourth in total defense and fifth in scoring defense.

It’s about to run into a team with even better defensive numbers: Exeter is No. 1 in the L-L in rushing defense (76 yards per game), No. 2 in scoring (11.0) and No. 2 in total defense (190). It played one of its best games against Northern in the semifinals, holding the Polar Bears to six first downs, 79 rushing yards and 142 total yards.

“When you hold Manheim Central to 17 points, that says a lot about your defense,” Strohl said of Exeter, which held the Barons to one-third their scoring average in a 21-17 Week 10 win. “(Anthony) Caccese, (Kyle) Lash, (Lucas) Palange, they make plays on both sides of the ball. They don’t take many breaks. That says it’s important to ’em and they’re going to do anything they can to win.”