SCH football hopes to bounce back after a disappointing 2015

Posted 8/22/16

Rick Knox SCH coach and Chestnut Hill Academy alum directs his team toward the end of practice on Friday Aug. 21 (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) by Jonathan Vander Lugt 2015 wasn’t a kind year to …

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SCH football hopes to bounce back after a disappointing 2015

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Rick Knox SCH coach and Chestnut Hill Academy alum directs his team toward the end of practice on Friday Aug. 21 (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) Rick Knox SCH coach and Chestnut Hill Academy alum directs his team toward the end of practice on Friday Aug. 21 (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

2015 wasn’t a kind year to Springside Chestnut Hill faithful. The Blue Devils started out well enough—they went 4-1 in their slate of non-conference games—but crashed, hard, during Inter-Ac play. After an 0-5, last place finish in the conference, this year’s team knows that it has to do better.

“The work ethic’s been great,” said SCH head coach Rick Knox. “The biggest thing for us is learning how to come together as a team—respecting each other, having fun together.

“The team-building part’s been really coming together.”

That’s good, because the Blue Devils will need all of the help they can get. For the second straight year, the team’s participation numbers grade out in the low 30s. They have a handful of two-way players, leaving them with need for a little more than 15 different starters.

That means that third-stringers will be rare, and a chunk of the starting 11 on either side will have to play special teams. It’s a grueling task to play with a roster that shallow, and its effects don’t really show until late in the year when injuries crop up and players are tired from the months-long grind.

“The biggest ways we try to overcome the numbers are twofold,” Knox said. “One, we have to work hard over the summer. If we’re not in shape, our depth will kill us.”

The second is that, with smaller numbers, coaches are able to dedicate more time to each player. If a team has 80 kids lined up on the sideline, a head coach isn’t going to have as much of a chance to interact with or offer advice to the whole team, especially younger guys.

When your team is barely larger than the amount of kids in a busy classroom, it’s a little easier to reach them.

“If you take our top eleven on either side of the ball, we can hang in with the vast majority, if not every team in the area,” Knox said. The trick is keeping all of them healthy.

Returning quarterback Matt Rahill, for one, isn’t particularly worried. The right-handed Rahill stands about 6-foot-2-inches and has enough mobility to keep defenses honest. He’s going to the University of Maryland on a lacrosse scholarship, so while he doesn’t have blazing speed, his feet are quick enough to do damage.

“Ever since I’ve been here my freshman year, we’ve been small numbers-wise,” he said. “My sophomore year, we had a great year.”

In 2014, the Blue Devils finished 8-2 on the strength of their offense. Helming it, Paul Dooley threw for 2,325 yards and 27 touchdowns. Syaire Madden (now playing for La Salle College HS) rushed for 1,259 yards and nine more scores. Dylan Parsons caught 47 passes for 1,001 yards.

Point is, if you have the talent, you can overcome a small roster size, and SCH seems to have the pieces in place for a bounceback 2016. Rahill is coming off of a 1,500 yard season. Jack Cucinotta and Matt Hoffman combined for 1200 yards receiving. Both of the Blue Devils’ feature backs, Justin Telamaque and Jordan Young, will return.

“I’m excited,” Rahill said. “All of our receivers are back, both our running backs and four members of our line are back.

“This is the best offensive line we’ve had in several years. Basically, we have four guys back with a lot of experience.

“For the first time this year, we have a lot of size. We have two 300-pounders, a 270-pounder, 230 pounds. We’re really intrigued with the line.”

In total, the Blue Devils are returning around nine starters on each side of the ball—a far cry from the two that they returned on offense last year. Defensively, they’ll look to senior Tyson Hugee to lead the unit.

“The defense is looking really good,” Hugee said. Having much of the unit back is “extremely important. We have the same chemistry. We didn’t lose a step in the off-season.”

“We’re really looking to beat some teams in the league,” he went on. To overcome the fact that they’ve got a small roster, “we’ve just got to do extra work.”

“Sometimes, me and my friends will run after practice,” he said. “You’ve got to swallow the fatigue, dig down within ourselves, and realize that we value winning more than we value taking a break.”

The Blue Devils get into action this weekend with a scrimmage at Mastery Charter North, before opening the season with a date at George Washington High School on Friday, Sept. 2. They open the Inter-Ac slate on Oct. 15 at Germantown Academy.

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