Football: Emotions run high between rivals

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007

Football: Emotions run high between rivals

Post-game incident mars Seneca Valley-Northwest game

by Brian Heard | Staff Writer

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J. Adam Fenster⁄The Gazette

Seneca Valley’s Jamaal Martin (left) and Aron McDonald celebrate a botched punt attempt by Northwest in the first quarter which set up Seneca’s first touchdown, an 11-yard run by McDonald, in the Screaming Eagles’ 34-13 win Friday at Northwest. Both Martin and McDonald each scored two touchdowns in the game.

There’s little question the most contentious rivalry in the county’s high-school sports scene is Seneca Valley-Northwest football. Another chapter in said was written Friday night. Yes, the game was close (as always it seems to be) until the fourth quarter when Seneca ran away to a 34-13 victory.

Then the bad blood simmering just beneath the surface between the Germantown programs boiled over in the form of a shouting altercation between the teams on the field just after the final whistle. Police, school administrators and security personnel separated the players and coaches without any serious incident and did not allow them to shake hands as is the post-game custom. Though head coaches Fred Kim (Seneca Valley) and Andrew Fields (Northwest) did shake hands.

The incident began when an unnamed Northwest assistant coach ran across the field after the final whistle to loudly accuse Kim of running up the score.

‘‘They were upset that we scored in the end and because of the pass we threw,” Kim said. ‘‘But I don’t see how you could say we ran up the score at 34-13. It’s my job as the football coach to make sure we win the game, and at 28-13 I didn’t feel all that comfortable against a team as talented and as explosive as Northwest. So we tried to put the game out of reach for good.”

As time was winding down, Seneca Valley, holding a 28-13 lead, intercepted an Efferlan Williams pass at the Northwest 47-yard line with 1 minute, 33 seconds on the clock to all but secure the victory. The Screaming Eagles ran five plays, including a deep pass, which was incomplete, before senior running back Jamaal Martin (11 carries, 72 yards, 2 TDs) raced in from 9 yards out with 23 seconds remaining to account for the game’s final points.

‘‘No, it was not one of those things that just happens,” Fields said. ‘‘There was a reason for it — A leads to B and B leads to C. I do think they tried to score again and make a close game look like a blowout. I’m not surprised Seneca Valley did that. But that’s not the way I would do it. That’s not the way we do things at Northwest.”

Again, Kim and Fields shook hands after the game and Kim said he apologized to Fields if he thought Seneca had tried to run up the score.

The post-game altercation will probably be what is remembered from Friday’s contest, but the game itself was competitive, especially in the first half. Neither team looked particularly sharp in the sloppy, rainy conditions. But Seneca (2-0) moved the ball with its running game rolling up 243 yards — led by senior Aron McDonald (85 yards on 11 carries, 2 TDs) — despite preparing to throw the ball a lot on Northwest (0-2).

‘‘We kind of got out of our gameplan,” Kim said. ‘‘We came into the season wanting to throw the ball more than we have the past couple of years, but the conditions made it tough and then we were surprised we could run on them. We didn’t think we’d be real successful doing that.”

The Screaming Eagles struck first scoring on a 10-yard run by McDonald midway through the opening period. By Northwest came right back with a 6-yard touchdown run by senior Chase Williams (9 carries, 60 yards). The score was set up by an 83-yard kickoff return from junior Marcel Bright, who was the Jaguars’ biggest weapon of the night, retuning three kickoffs for 130 yards. Matt Logeman’s extra point gave Northwest its only lead of the game at 7-6 with 5:19 left in the first period.

Seneca junior quarterback George Lerch dove in from a yard out on the final play of the opening quarter and McDonald ran in the two-point conversion to make it 14-7. The Jaguars added a 6-yard touchdown run by senior Sam Trotman (the extra point was missed) in the second quarter to make the score 14-13, where it stood until midway through the third when McDonald scored from four yards out to make it 21-13.

Martin scored on a 7-yard run in the fourth and then finished the day with the controversial 9-yard touchdown in the waning seconds which helped set off the post-game incident.

‘‘Part of it is that this is an intense rivalry,” Kim said. ‘‘The emotions got out of hand — the disappointment of losing and the excitement of winning.”