Late drive, pick-off carry Emmaus

FROM THE MORNING CALL

The Freedom punt backed up Emmaus to its 8-yard line.

An illegal substitution penalty before the Green Hornets ran their first play cost them even more yardage.

"I thought 'We're going to shoot ourselves in the foot right here and let this game slip away,' " admitted Emmaus coach Joe Bottiglieri, whose team was deadlock with the Patriots with eight minutes left in regulation.

Instead, the Green Hornets went on a masterful 12-play, 6:11 scoring drive, and their ball-hawking defense later came up with a game-saving interception in the final seconds to preserve a key 20-14 Lehigh Valley Conference win before a small crowd at BASD Stadium

"All those things go through your mind, but I never lose faith in the kids," added Bottiglieri, whose team shook off the post-Parkland hangover to improve to 3-1 overall (2-1 in the LVC). "That's two weeks in a row on offense they've come through — last week against Parkland an 80-yard drive [for the winning score], and now tonight."

"We just stayed focused and put together a great drive," said senior Brian Velasco, who scored Emmaus' first two touchdowns (one on a 39-yard interception return) and also knocked down a pass in the back of the end zone on the play before sophomore Andrew Brown's final interception with seven seconds left. "It's got to be one of the best drives we've put together all year."

It began with a jaunt to the 30-yard line by senior Joe Williams, who continues to assert himself after sitting out the season-opener for disciplinary reasons. Williams, who finished with 112 yards, was one of four Hornets to carry the ball on the drive, including Velasco who got 10 of his 62 yards on a critical third-and-8 play to keep the drive going. Williams later converted another third down (Emmaus was 8-for-14 on third downs in the game) to the Freedom 15, and after quarterback Nate Fick juked his way to the 3 on the next play, Williams capped the drive with 1:56 left.

"I turned to my offensive coordinator when we got down there and said we didn't have to get it in right away, because I wanted to eat up more clock. Then Joe scores on the next play," Bottiglieri said with a smile.

That nearly gave Freedom (2-2, 1-2) enough time to steal the win after Emmaus' Taylor Millheim twice was wide left on the extra point (she got the second chance on a roughing the kicker penalty). Lukas Giovarelli completed four passes to drive the Patriots from their 32 to a first down at the Emmaus 23 with 26 seconds left. After a shovel pass was broken up, Giovarelli went for Eddie Elliott in the back of the end zone, but Velasco was there to knock away the ball.

Brown came up with the interception at the 2 on the next play, and Fick ran once into the line to run out the clock. It was Emmaus' third pick of the day, with Derrick Watkins coming up with the other on fourth down at the Emmaus 20 late in the first half.

The three interceptions give Emmaus 10 for the season to go with three fumble recoveries, and the Green Hornets are a plus-10 through four games in the takeaway department.

"You look at our linebackers and secondary, and there's a lot of kids who started or played a lot last year," Bottiglieri said. "Where we were concerned was if we'd be able to match up front with some of the other LVC teams, and so far the kids are holding up [although] we've got to do a better job at stopping the run."

Emmaus did that in the second half Friday. Elliott had 60 yards on 13 carries at the break, and Freedom scored twice on two short drives set up by kickoff returns of 34 and 38 yards by Frank Bucsi. But the Patriots had just 24 rushing yards and 65 total yards in the second half, and 45 of them came on the Patriots final drive.

"We've got to get more consistent," Freedom coach Jason Roeder said. "Give them credit; they put together a great drive at the end. But we've got to be tougher in the fourth quarter."

Velasco helped the Hornets control the clock by picking up first downs on five of his 10 carries, along with a 2-yard TD run.

"Brian is a heck of a player, and the thing that's deceiving with him is that he's faster than people think," Bottiglieri said. "He's very quick and explosive. He just hasn't gotten the chance to show that much."

Bottiglieri spent the week preaching to his team to forget about last week's rare and emotional win over Parkland and focus on Freedom, but the Hornets still seemed to have somewhat of a Trojan hangover in the opening quarter.

"We said, 'We beat Parkland for our second win, and all it meant was that we weren't going to be 1-9,' " Bottiglieri said.

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