Sky-high confidence

Pennsville feeling good about season going into opener; all 5 county football teams in action this week

SALEM COUNTY SCHEDULE
Thursday’s games
Pleasantville at Penns Grove, 10 a.m.
Pennsville at Lindenwold, 6 p.m.
Haddon Heights at Woodstown, 7 p.m.
Friday’s game
Pitman at Schalick, 7 p.m.
Saturday’s game
Camden at Salem, noon

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNSVILLE – Sky Eppes had never played running back on any level of organized football until Pennsville’s season opener last year against Lindenwold. But his first game – heck, his first carry – seemed to set him up as a natural.

The then-junior admittedly was a little nervous going into it, but the first time he ever carried the ball in a varsity game he broke off a 20-yard run. He had two other long runs later, went for 200 yards and two touchdowns on 24 busy carries and the Eagles won by outscoring their visitors 34-26 when the clock ran out on the Lions.

The boys in blue seemed to be on their way to something special. But it didn’t continue. That spectacular beginning would be their only win as a bad mixture of internal and external forces conspired to tear their season apart.
 
Eppes and the Eagles open the new season against the same opponent Thursday – this time on the road — hoping for similar first-game results and confident about the needle trending upwards as they move forward.

“We won the game, but they had the ball driving it with time running out for a chance to tie it up, so it wasn’t like it was an easy game or anything for us,” Eagles coach Mike Healy said. “Obviously, it was great to get a win, but we knew we had some issues. 

“This year I feel more confident going into it, for sure. I think we’re just better overall (on) offense and defense right now going into it. We think we’re better prepared this year, better ready to go. We’ve played much better this preseason. We’re limiting a lot of mistakes. We still have some, but we’re doing a better job of limiting them going forward.”

The issues of last year behind them, the Eagles have brought in some new coaches with links to their most recent decorated past and the players are buying into what the coaches are selling. Now, it’s a matter of executing when they get on the field.

Lindenwold spread the Eagles out last year and exposed their coverage issues, but the Lions showed to be heavy run last week in their 19-0 season opening loss at Sterling.  

“We just want to execute properly, that’s really what it is,” Healy said. “We feel if we execute properly we can be in and win any game this year. I’m very excited with the group we have going this year. We’re still a young team but we have more experience coming back. There’s definitely anticipation because we think we can accomplish better stuff this year.

“We’re not dealing with internal things right now. We’re all focused on what the goal is. Everyone seems to have bought into their role on the team and understand that if we’re going to be successful we need all 11 guys on that field to do their job each time. We’re playing more as a team instead of 11 individuals.”

Eppes was as much a victim of whatever implosion was going on with the Eagles as anybody. He got moved to running back because Healy wanted some speed in the backfield and the move paid off with the 200 yards against Lindenwold, but he had only 452 in the eight games that followed.

His best rushing game the rest of the year was 97 yards against Schalick. In his defense, he also was used as a receiver and had 115 yards receiving against Cumberland.

“I was hyped,” he said about his first game at running back. “I was like we’re going to have a good year … and turn Pennsville around and bring it back to where it was in 2014. But it didn’t happen that way.”

This year promises to be better because attitudes are different and the Eagles have a scheme in place designed to put Eppes and the offense in situations to be able to do better. Now, he wants to set school rushing and touchdown records – once he learns what they are – and for the offense to have big games every week.

“This is my senior year; I’m trying to run as hard as I can and put up numbers,” he said. “I want to hit a big score again, I want to go hit a big score on everybody.

“We had bigger linemen (last year) but it isn’t about how big and strong you are, it’s about the heart that we have. The heart we have in this team will go very far. The heart and compassion for this team is what’s going to bring us along.”

PLEASANTVILLE (0-1) at PENNS GROVE (0-1): After suffering seven turnovers in their season opener – six lost fumbles – the Red Devils spent the week working on the highest priority for the offense – ball security. They moved the ball well enough to win, rushing for 328 yards, but the turnovers killed them. 

There wasn’t an idle moment in practice this week when a Penns Grove player didn’t have a football tucked tightly on their person. The thing coach John Emel didn’t want to see was a ball on the ground or the Red Devils would have, um, the hot place to pay.

“We made it a point of emphasis,” Emel said. “We practiced a lot of ball security drills. It’s not something we don’t talk about. Everybody has a Big 3 keys to win – we’ve done it forever – and the No. 1 on our board is always been ball security. If you take care of the ball, you win the turnover battle, no matter what else happens you have a better opportunity to win the game.

“We didn’t do that; that’s disappointing. We’ve definitely got to be better. I’m optimistic we’ll go out and play a lot better on Thursday and we’ll fix the things where we made mistakes. It wasn’t just a bad game, it’s the worst turnover game we’ve ever had in my 20 years of coaching high school.”

The most positive takeaway from the game was the debut of freshman Karon Ceaser. The Red Devils’ first true freshman skill position starter in 20 years rushed for 155 yards and two touchdowns, but he wasn’t immune to fumbling either. The difference was he recovered his.

Pleasantville also is looking to get on the right track. The Greyhounds are coming off a 14-6 loss to Ocean City in the Battle at the Beach. They beat Penns Grove last year 26-2.

HADDON HEIGHTS (0-0) at WOODSTOWN (0-0): https://godaddy623.wordpress.com/2023/08/29/a-ware-of-history/

PITMAN (0-0) at SCHALICK (1-0): The Cougars’ dramatic season-opening win over their longest-tenured rival sets them up for another piece of history this week.

The Cougars have a chance to go 2-0 for the first time since 2017 when they opened the season with back-to-back shutouts of Wildwood and Riverside and set up what some observers think can be an even more historic start.

Coaches are notorious for not looking ahead (publicly, at least) so coach Mike Wilson’s focus this week was correcting the mistakes that were made in the opening – and there were some – and simply going 1-0 this week.

“It’s like I told the kids Saturday when we watched the film, we still haven’t played our best football yet,” Wilson said. “We did a lot of good things, but we left a lot of points on the field and made a lot of opening-game mistakes we’ve been fixing this week.

“The kids know we did a good job, but that’s over with now and we’ve got to get better. There’s a lot of room for growth. I expect us to make a big jump this week.”

Another thing the film revealed was just how good a game junior nose T.J. Hymer had. Hymer made the back-to-back stops on the goal line to keep Gloucester City from taking the lead at that point in the fourth quarter, but he did more than that.

“We knew T.J. played a great game, but he played probably the best football game of his life Friday night,” Wilson said. “What he did at nose Friday night, he played well, but watching the film, he played excellent. If I was grading his film, he would get high grades across the board.”

The Cougars lead the series 21-17. They have won 12 of the last 13 by some substantial margins, including an 11-game winning streak that was snapped in 2020.

CAMDEN (0-1) at SALEM (0-1): Now that they’ve sorted out where they’re going to play, the Rams can get back to the bigger business of fixing the things that went wrong in their opening-game loss to Executive Education.

The focus of the week has been tightening up their defense. The Rams were as close as 14-13 in the third quarter, then got outscored 28-6 the rest of the game.

“Our guys knew what we do, we just didn’t do it,” Rams coach Danny Mendoza said. “The discipline part of defense is what we need to focus on to get us on the right track. We’ve got guys who can make plays, we’ve just got to get those guys to do what we’re telling them.”

Now that he’s seen what his team has and needs at the speed of a real game, Mendoza can go about tweaking the defense to put players in more advantageous positions for their skill sets.

It’s a new experience for Mendoza, too. His experience has long been on offense, but the late timing of his hiring dictated Mendoza take the role of overseeing a defense for the first time. He’s brought a different look to the unit and it’s a work in progress for both sides.

“It’s a new role,” he said. “As an offensive guy you always make the defense the villain. Now, you have to even it out. The offense will always be solid, but we’ve got to make sure we’re just as solid on that side of the ball as well.”

The game was supposed to be part of the Mid-Atlantic Pigskin Classic at Wilmington’s Abessinio Stadium, but conflicts at the site led to both teams pulling out. The game now will be played at Salem’s Walnut Street Field, the Rams’ long-time stomping grounds that fell into disrepair and led to the school building an on-campus stadium.

Photo: Pennsville’s Sky Eppes (1) runs the ball back during a recent scrimmage against Haddon Heights. Eppes and the Eagles make their regular-season debut Thursday night at Lindenwold. (Photo by Lorraine Jenkins)