Saints continue to rise from early season setbacks
2025 Berks football coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
| Final | |
| Berks Cath. | 37 |
| Columbia | 0 |
By Mike Drago — MikeDragoSports.com Managing Editor
Like phoenix, that bird of Greek mythology, it was from the ashes of an early season fire that the Berks Catholic Saints have emerged as a team to be reckoned with.
They found themselves 28 points down against Bethlehem Catholic in Week 3 when they put together a huge late rally that forced Golden Hawks coach Joe Bernard to insert his starters back into the game.
“Right there, right then, we knew we could put it on some teams,” said senior quarterback Johnny Sauppee.
Sauppee took over at quarterback that night after Cole Harter was injured; the Saints have been close to unstoppable since.
Sauppee threw a pair of touchdown passes and was part of a dominant defensive effort Thursday as the Saints won their fifth in a row, dominating Columbia 37-0 in a Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 5 game at Forino Sports Complex.
“We knew they were a very good football team,” Sauppee said of Becca, which held on for a 48-41 win. “We came back (and figured) if we could put it on them, we could put it on anyone.”
Over their last 21 quarters the Saints (5-0, 6-2) have outscored their opponents 220-32, with three mercy rule victories. They’re cruising toward their first Section 5 title and a return to the District 3 Class 3A Tournament.
They’ve done it with dominant line play, strong defense, and one of the most potent rushing attacks in the league. Thursday they got a little boost from their rarely used passing game.
Sauppee knows that as a Wing-T quarterback he’s not going to be throwing the ball much. When a pass play was sent in Thursday after the Saints had opened the game with 10 straight runs his eyes lit up.
“I figured we’d pound the rock, pound the rock, throw it over their heads,” Sauppee said. “That was our game plan and we got it done. When I hear that (pass play) come into the huddle, that’s exciting.”
Sauppee found tight end Nick DeFazio for a 12-yard touchdown that snapped a scoreless tie. It was Sauppee’s third TD pass of the season, and second to DeFazio.
“John executes some stuff in the passing game really well,” said Saints coach Dave Stahler. “The consistency’s not quite there yet but he did a nice job finding Nick in the end zone.”
The next time Berks Catholic got in scoring position it caught the undermanned Crimson Tide (2-3, 3-5) with another pass. On first down at the 12 Sauppee swung a pass out to the right flat and let fullback Coy Koller do the rest, working his way down the sideline and into the corner of the end zone.
“We were just taking advantage of the numbers,” Sauppee explained. “They had a lot of people in the box; we wanted to get somebody out there quickly. We executed that and Coy did a great job touching the pilon to get in.”
“We felt their edge guys, their secondary guys, were starting to creep up a little bit,” Stahler said, “(so) we tried to get a quick one out in the flat and steal one.”
With the way the Saints were playing defense that 14-0 lead was more than enough. Their defense line constantly penetrated the backfield, scoring big losses. They created 10 negative plays all told, including a pair of tackles by defensive end Faith Zudie that netted losses of 7 and 8 yards, respectively. He also forced a fumble, broke up a pass and was in on a fourth-quarter safety when Ty Brommer was tackled in the end zone after the Tide took possession inside its 1.
Columbia did not penetrate the Berks Catholic 40. It punted four times, turned the ball over twice, was stopped on downs once and was caught for a safety on its eight possessions.
Tide quarterback Cameron McClair completed 10-of-16 passes but for just 74 yards; he had no completion longer than 14 yards. He was sacked twice.
“I thought we were great on defense,” Stahler said of a unit that held the Tide to minus-2 rushing yards on 20 attempts and 86 total yards. “The kids did a great job of coming in focus and executed.”
That was no easy task in a short week, and with little turnaround time from its last game. Berks Catholic won 31-7 Saturday at Kutztown. It played a JV game on Monday and practiced Tuesday without its juniors, who were on a pilgrimage in Washington, D.C. Stahler conducted just one full practice, on Wednesday.
Maybe that explains a slow start, and just a pair of first-half scores. The Saints got no big offensive plays in the first half but those came with regularity after halftime. Jeremiah Camara opened the third quarter with a 45-yard kickoff return; three plays later he was in the end zone with a 41-yard run, part of a 100-yard rushing performance.
Koller opened the next possession with a 54-yard run, to the 40. Sauppee ran for 21 yards and Aidan Curley finished the drive with a 10-yard run to make it 28-0.
Overall, Berks Catholic totaled 370 rushing yards, 224 after halftime. And that with one of their top backs, Owen Schalk, who’s averaging 14 yards per carry, missing his second straight game with a shoulder injury.
The Saints have it all going right now. They’ll close the regular season in two weeks against Annville-Cleona, which shares the Section 5 lead with them.
“Coming into the year we didn’t know what we really had, (after) losing a lot of seniors,” Sauppee said. “We got it handed to us to by Twin Valley (45-19 in the season-opener). We took every day at practice more seriously.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Columbia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Berks Catholic | 7 | 7 | 14 | 9 | 37 |
Scoring summary
| 1 | Berks Catholic | DeFazio, 12 pass from Sauppee (Reali kick) | 1:36 |
| 2 | Berks Catholic | Koller, 12 pass from Sauppee (Reali kick) | 2:42 |
| 3 | Berks Catholic | Camara, 41 run (Reali kick) | 10:11 |
| 3 | Berks Catholic | Curley, 10 run (Reali kick) | 3:31 |
| 4 | Berks Catholic | Safety, Brommer tackled in end zone | 10:07 |
| 4 | Berks Catholic | Zudie, 48 run (Reali kick) | 9:51 |
Team statistics
| COLUMBIA | BERKS CATHOLIC | |
| First downs | 7 | 20 |
| Rushes-yards | 20-(-2) | 45-367 |
| Passing yards | 88 | 22 |
| Total yards | 86 | 389 |
| Passes | 11-18-1 | 3-7-0 |
| Fumbles-lost | 3-1 | 0-0 |
| Punts-average | 4-50.5 | 2-43.5 |
| Penalties-yards | 2-10 | 5-35 |
Individual statistics
RUSHING
Columbia: Marley 2-22, Ocasio 1-(-1), Kar. Nichols 6-(-4), McClair 5-(-8), Brommer 6-(-11).
Berks Catholic: Camara 12-100, Curley 7-73, Koller 3-57, Zudie 2-56, Gerald 8-46, Damon 4-20, Sauppee 3-16, Burkman 3-2, Team 3-(-3).
PASSING
Columbia: McClair 10-16-0–74, Kar. Nichols 1-2-1–14.
Berks Catholic: Sauppee 3-7-0–22.
RECEIVING
Columbia: Morris 3-30, Ocasio 2-14, Green 2-14, McClair 1-14, Kar. Nichols 1-13, Stallworth 1-3, Marley 1-0.
Berks Catholic: DeFazio 1-12, Koller 1-12, Gonzalez 1-(-2).
INTERCEPTIONS
Berks Catholic: Gonzalez.
These and other photos from the game can be purchased from PhilMarPhoto.
