STANDING IN a cold, driving rain near midfield on the artificial surface at Washington Township High School, Cherokee senior running back Sean Farrell surveyed the damage he had inflicted on the Minutemen throughout the evening.
Rare is the event that lives up to the hype, and this game last night between the Daily News' No. 3 team, Cherokee, and No. 6 Washington Township proved that point. Cherokee manhandled the Minutemen for four quarters en route to a 35-0 win in a Burlco/Olympic American Division game. Cherokee (5-0 overall, 3-0) used the week leading up to the game to change its base defense, throw in a ton of different looks for the Minutemen's newly installed spread offense, while it remained true to its offensive self and left little room for doubt which program was more advanced at the midpoint of the season.
"To be completely honest, we do believe we can win every game 35-0," said Farrell, who scored four touchdowns and rushed for 139 yards on 20 carries. "Those are our expectations. Of course, you don't always attain that goal, but that's what we expect. We we're fortunate enough to execute well enough to win by that margin."
A season ago, Cherokee beat Township, 21-0, at Cherokee and what began on that night just continued through last night as a drenched Homecoming crowd looked on in shock. The Minutemen (4-1, 3-1) came in undefeated and off a bye week but in some ways, that hurt Township, according to head coach Mark Wechter.
"The bye weeks does not help us," Wechter said. "It didn't help us last year. It certainly didn't help us this year. We need to play and play every week. That was the biggest factor. The flatness and the team speed that we couldn't produce in practice."
Just how bad was this night for Township? Well, for one thing, it was out gained 266 yards to 49. Think that's bad; think again. Cherokee got out to a 21-0 lead at halftime, based on a 168-20 advantage in total yards for the first half.
Township did appear a step slow, and just how much that had to do with the bye week and how much it had to do with Cherokee's defense could be answered if these meet again in December's Group 4 playoffs. For now, just know the Chiefs, and in particular two-way back Ty Powell, appeared everywhere the Minutemen wanted to go.
Powell deflected three passes and was in on several tackles, but it was his constant movement that disrupted all aspects of Township's attack.
"I've heard that they were calling me fat and out of shape," the 6-1, 205-pound senior said. "We just went with different formations [on defense away from the usual 5-2 set]. We kept them off guard. They had 2 weeks to prepare.
"I don't think they expected us to come out like that."
"They totally changed their defense," Wechter said. "My hat is off to them. They ran something they have not run...ever. We go back as far as 4 years watching them on film against spread teams. They are a big, base 5-2 team with a cover three, and on third down they're going to blitz you and they did none of that tonight. It took us a half to adjust and unfortunately by that time we were down, 21-0."
After Township put together its best drive of the night - a nine-play, 38-yard drive at the start, Cherokee's Anthony Alosi dragged Township quarterback Nick Valori to the ground on fourth-and-10. After that, the Chiefs were in control.
After the teams exchanged punts, the Chiefs' ground attack settled in behind a wall of blockers that included Alosi, Jeffrey Long, Joe Moffitt, Justin Nykiel and Tim Swanson. First, there was a six-play, 33-yard drive that culminated in a 10-yard burst up the middle by Farrell. In the second quarter, a 10-play, 88-yard drive - highlighted by a 30-yard completion from Andrew Martin to Brett Miller on third-and-3 at the Cherokee 29 - ended with a 13-yard touchdown for Farrell that put Cherokee up, 14-0.
Things went from bad to worse for the Minutemen as a fumbled kickoff was corralled by Connor Montagno; three plays later, Farrell made it 21-0 with an 8-yard scamper.
"We wouldn't have predicted this," Cherokee coach P.J. Mehigan said. "The kids had a great week of practice. We did well in every phase of the game, and the weather did play a part of that.
"Traditionally, we're in a run-stopping defense so we just backed it up a little bit. We moved some things around, and that worked to our advantage as well."i
Send e-mail to radanom@phillynews.com.
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