Football: Friday Night Flashback

By Phil Anastasia

A look back at some interesting developments in SJ football on Friday night:

-- Washington Twp. 33, Winslow 27, OT: Christian Maiden threw a 25-yard TD pass to Frank Kahana on the Minutemen's first play in OT to clinch the victory.

The win was huge for the Minutemen, who bounced back from a 63-19 loss to Eastern on opening night. Of course, after Eastern scored 50 against No. 1 Timber Creek on Friday night, that score doesn't look quite that bad.

Washington Twp. was down 14-7 at half but rallied behind senior all-purpose star Andrew O'Neill.

"He was amazing," WT coach Mark Wechter said. "He's an amazing leader, always knows when to be serious and when to have fun."

Washington Twp. is in rebuilding mode. At one point, the Minutemen had three sophomore linebackers in the game.

"I don't think we've ever had that here," Wechter said. "But this is a great group of kids. We're going to be in a lot of close games this year. We were going into overtime last night and our kids had smiles on their faces."

-- A fumble on the first play. An interception on the fifth. St. Joseph was behind Holy Spirit by a 12-0 score just three minutes and 45 seconds into Friday night's showdown.

"Ninety-nine teams out of 100 would have panicked with this many young kids," St. Joseph coach Paul Sacco said.

St. Joseph kept its poise, battled back and even held a 20-19 lead at halftime. The Wildcats lost to the Spartans by a 31-28 score but Sacco saw some real positives in his team's resilience on the road against a quality opponent in a big-game atmosphere.

"Our goal is always the same, keep getting better," Sacco said. "This game will help us."

-- Nice win for Lenape. The Indians hadn't won in September in Tim McAneney's first two seasons as head coach.

But Lenape got a big game from junior Ben Hunt and beat Seneca 37-15. They are .500 for the first time in McAneney's three years -- the first two of which were marked by slow starts and strong finishes.

McAneney had high praise for senior center Nick Giamello and junior two-way back Ben Hunt.

Hunt, who was hampered by a chest injury in a season-opening loss to Cherokee, ran for two TDs and took a kickoff back for another score.

Lenape blocked a field goal, registered a safety and scored on a kickoff. Those big plays were the difference.

"Ben is such a competitor," McAneney said. "He was banged up against Cherokee but you could tell all week he was going to have a big game."

-- Air Hinson. Timber Creek lost 50-41 to Eastern and the Chargers will drop out of the No. 1 spot in the rankings.

But TC put up some remarkable passing numbers in a wild game against the Vikings.

TC senior quarterback Dan Williams set the SJ record for passing yards in a single game with 488. Williams was 20-for-32 passing with 4 TDs. The old record was 471 yards set in 2002 by some guy from Audubon named Joe Flacco.

For the year, Williams is 43-for-64 for 785 yards. He's on pace -- if TC plays 12 games -- to pass for 4,710 yards, which would shatter the SJ single-season record by a 1,520 yards.

TC senior WR Adonis Jennings caught 10 passes for 288 yards on Friday night, according to TC's team stats. That was second-highest single-game total in SJ history as Holy Cross's Issac Irby had 290 in a 1999 game.

Jennings, a Rutgers recruit, has 20 catches this season 442 yards and 6 TDs. He's on pace for these numbers in a 12-game season: 120 catches, 2,652 yards and 36 TDs.

Obviously, neither Williams nor Jennings will maintain this pace. And Coach Rob Hinson probably wouldn't mind a few 20-6 victories dominated by his defense.

But it's becoming more and more of a spread, no-huddle, get-athletes-in-space game at the high school level.

-- Unlikely QB: Cinnaminson senior Brad Hawthorne stepped in at quarterback because of an injury to starter Nick Thevanayagam and led the Pirates to a huge 19-13 win over No. 22 Northern Burlington.

Hawthornw, normally a senior RB, ran 36 times for 178 yards. Cinnaminson (1-1) bounced back from a loss to Ewing on opening night.

"The kids played well," Cinnaminson coach Mario Patrizi said.

-- This and that. Penn State and Temple coaches were in attendance at the Eastern-Timber Creek game. If Eastern QB Tom Flacco doesn't get 10 D-I offers this week, something is wrong. He's Johnny Manziell without the off-the-field issues . . . West Deptford beat Lindenwold 61-0. The Eagles have outscored their first two opponents by 137-0 and play at rebuilding Overbook on Saturday . . . Wildwood was inches from cancelling the season a couple weeks ago. On Friday, Jose Valentin ran for 174 yards and 3 TDs in a 20-16 win over Riverside . . . Woodstown is out to a 2-0 start and has outscored opponents 83-16 after 55-8 win over Pitman. The Woodies visit Glassboro Friday in a big Diamond Division game . . . St. Augustine Prep is 2-0 and junior RB Lamont Harris has 374 rushing yards . . . Cherokee's Trevor Osler is 24-for-30 passing this season for 276 yards and 3 TDs. The Chiefs visit Williamstown Friday in the game of the week . . . CH West is 2-0 and plays Timber Creek on Friday. The Lions got runs from Jaquan Gonzalez-Pratt in 33-6 win over Cumberland. That was impressive just four nights after season opening win over Paul VI . . . Williamstown has won 15 in a row after Kevin Gilmore's 28-yard FG with 3:30 left produced a 17-14 win over upset-minding Shawnee . . . The Renegades built a 14-0 lead over Williamstown as sophomore QB Mike Welsh had a pair of 1-yard TD runs. Shawnee missed senior RB Anthony DiOrio, who sat out the rest of the game after suffering a first-quarter groin injury . . . Collingswood is 2-0 and should get to 3-0 with 0-2 Gateway on the schedule before the Colonial's bye week. The Colls beat Haddon Twp. 7-0 Friday as Jordan Wallace threw a 47-yard TD pass to Steven Copeland. Collingswood was 3-0 in 2010 and finished 6-4 . . . Absegami senior RB David Hood, a Temple recruit, went for 211 yards and 2 TDs in a 26-7 win over Middle Twp. . . . Watch out for Atlantic City. The Vikings beat EHT, 41-12, Friday night behind emerging soph QB Jamir Prevard.

Contact Phil Anastasia at panastasia@phillynews.com. Follow @PhilAnastasia on Twitter.