Following an impressive season opening 43-27 win over Great Valley, it would be hard to imagine that Phantoms head coach Bill Furlong and his staff would have a long “to do” list this week in preparation for a non-league tilt with Neumann-Goretti on Friday night.
In a game in which senior Vinny Nattle’s 237 rushing yards garnered him the Max Preps team player of the week honors, it was the big plays on both sides of the ball that kept Furlong burning up the chalkboard all week long.
“We need to prevent big plays against us,” said Furlong. “We won the game last week but that was a scary team. They had some big plays and even though we were up big on the scoreboard, we never really felt like the game was secure. One play can make such an impact on the game. We need to get our crowd into the game and keep them doubting from themselves tomorrow.”
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The Saints (1-0), following a tumultuous week with all of the labor issues plaguing the Archdiocese, will venture to Washington Field fresh off the heels of a 34-20 win over Horace Furnace last Friday in which they posted some pretty gaudy offensive number as well rushing for more than 200 yards as a team.
The focus of the Phantoms will again be execution of the game plan and staying disciplined on both ides of the ball. With a healthy line up returning this week Nattle will be relied on heavily along with senior Dwayne Clemmons to eat up the clock in the event of the Phantoms building a lead.
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“We will have games where we put up big rushing numbers,” said Furlong. “Once we got the lead, we were trying to eat up as much clock on every possession, to shorten the game. They had some dangerous people on offense.”
“We have been working on some stuff all week,” said senior quarterback Alex McQuiston. “We set goals for ourselves individually, but they come secondary to us winning as a team. No matter what happens during the game, the number one priority is to get the win.”
The early season success has sent the message loud and clear to the big dogs of the Pioneer Athletic Conference that Phoenixville is not to be overlooked when to comes to looking over the landscape of a league that has been dominated by another AAA school in Pottsgrove over the past three seasons.
“It’s great that the league is wide open this season,” added McQuiston. “We always approach each season with the hope of getting to the playoffs. The only thing we can do as a team is to put it all out there and hope for the best. That’s why we play the games.”
The Phantoms (1-0) win over the Patriots was fueled by a tenacious defense that forced four turnovers and registered five sacks as well as 405 yards of total offensive output. To be successful again this week and going forward into the grueling PAC-10 regular season, Phoenixville will have to continue to fine tune its game each week.
“We have to be sure that every time we take the field that we are a better Phoenixville team that the previous week,” said Furlong. “We have to be certain not to beat ourselves, first and foremost. Then we can worry about the team lining up on the other side of the ball. Our intensity has been great and our squad as a whole has been very upbeat so far.”
The Phantoms will have to shut down a Neumann-Goretti squad that features a balanced offense that saw speedster Antwoine Powers rack up 185 yards and three touchdowns as well two more scoring strikes from the quarterbacking duo of Shane Thomas and John Mastrando, who combined for 94 yards passing.
The offensive line of the Phantoms which includes and Brian Hyland, Tim Hunt, Tom White, Jessie Gervasi and Alex McLemore who opened the holes for Nattle (237 yards), Ryan Yenchick (97 yards) and quarterback Alec McQuiston (50 yards) will look to repeat a stand out performance this week as they battle the Saints.
Look for junior place kicker Ian Harrigan to impact the game as well this week as he looked great in practice all week kicking off of the turf.
Projection- Phoenixville 30 Neumann Goretti 20
The game begins at 7 p.m. Friday at Washington Field.
