Elizabethtown pulls off upset of Cocalico in coach’s debut
2025 Berks football coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
(This story was produced by LNP/Lancasteronline, and published in partnership with MikeDragoSports.com.)
By Jeff Reinihart — LNP/Lancasteronline
ELIZABETHTOWN – The Elizabethtown Bears were facing a pretty tricky situation.
| Final | |
| Elizabethtown | 15 |
| Cocalico | 14 |
The Bears trailed longtime Lancaster-Lebanon League heavyweight and former section rival Cocalico by 14 points in the fourth quarter Saturday and the Eagles were doing their thing, gouging out yardage on the ground and chewing up plenty of clock.
And then all heck broke loose.
Cocalico turned the ball over twice in the waning minutes and Elizabethtown took advantage, scoring two touchdowns in the final 3:39 to stun the Eagles 15-14 in a riveting non-league game.
“That was a roller coaster,” said first-year Elizabethtown coach Tom Gallagher. “We said to just win one play at a time. It’s a cliche, but it works. ‘Win one play at a time. Win one play at a time. Win one play at a time.’ And they didn’t quit. We found a way to get on a run and we rode the momentum.”
Cocalico had a seemingly safe 14-0 lead behind a pair of third-quarter touchdowns. After a scoreless first half, Eagles’ quarterback Connor Horning put Cocalico on the board first with a 22-yard TD keeper. It was a prototypical Eagles’ drive, with plenty of clutch runs. James Anderson had a 16-yard run and Horning had an 11-yard keeper to keep the drive cranking.
Later in the third Cocalico grabbed a 14-0 lead when Logan Horning had a 29-yard TD burst, blasting his way right up the gut and the Eagles were sitting pretty.
But the Eagles got some slippery fingers down the stretch; they lost four fumbles in all, including two in the first half. Cocalico’s final fumble was scooped up by Elizabethtown’s Cole Kreider with 58 seconds to play, sealing the win.
“Feels great to come out and start off the year hot like this,” Elizabethtown’s Gannon Shank said. “We knew that if it was a close game in the fourth quarter, we could win it. I thought our defense was spot-on for all four quarters, and we played with a lot of fire. Now we have a lot of confidence.”
Elizabethtown is 1-0 for the first time in three years.
Cocalico is 0-1 for the first time since 2023; the Eagles recovered quite nicely, eventually winning the District 3 Class 5A championship later that fall.
The four lost fumbles were the bottom line.
“It’s hard to win with four turnovers,” Cocalico coach Bryan Strohl said. “Credit to them. I thought we had it rolling there in the second half, but they didn’t quit. They fought back.”
It was an impressive rally for Elizabethtown, which was stymied by Cocalico’s defense throughout. Four times the Eagles turned the Bears over on downs — three times alone in the first half, and twice inside the 10. Those especially hurt.
Elizabethtown had drives stall on downs at Cocalico’s 7 and 2. The Bears also dodged a bullet right before the half when Luke Heckman darted in to block Breck Popolis’ 25-yard field goal attempt at the second-quarter horn.
Kauffman, who passed for 210 yards, broke the ice for Elizabethtown with his 19-yard TD run with 3:39 to go. The Bears went for the two-point conversion and Kauffman zipped a pass to Shank, making it 14-8.
“Really smart to go for two there,” Strohl noted. “That was a good move. It put them in a good position.”
Almost immediately. When Elizabethtown got the ball back Kauffman capped a scoring drive with a 2-yard TD run and Amann N’Dikwe drilled the extra point, giving the Bears a 15-14 lead.
“We wanted to cause a little stress and mix some things up, and I thought that worked,” Gallagher said. “We were able to capitalize.”
And how.
“We got gritty,” Kauffman said. “We all kept pushing forward. We all did our assignments. We all did our jobs. And we won this as a team. We just needed to execute better. We were missing a block here and missing a hole there.”
But Elizabethtown was clutch when it mattered most.
“We were finally moving the ball and we were having some success,” Strohl said. “But ultimately, the turnovers were killers. We can’t sulk. We have to figure some things out, and we have to take care of the ball better.”
“Very proud,” Gallagher said. “I didn’t expect to see this kind of result with that kind of buy-in right away. But this speaks to the kind of kids we have, and what they’re willing to do.”
