With 28-21 win over Easton, Blue Eagles capture first D11 title since 1989.

FROM THE MORNING CALL

As he wandered around the Andrew S. Leh Stadium turf Saturday night, Nazareth coach Rob Melosky found a line of former players waiting to congratulate him.

Players like Danny Wilk and Chuck Dibilio who helped Melosky turn the Blue Eagles in a positive direction before graduating wanted to share in the program's crowning moment.

With senior quarterback Daniel Harding leading yet another rally from a double-digit deficit, top-seeded Nazareth ended No. 3 Easton's reign as the District 11 Class 4A champions. The Blue Eagles scored 28 unanswered points between the first and third quarters before putting away the Red Rovers with a final clock-killing drive, capturing the District 11 Class 4A football title with a 28-21 win.

By winning its first district title since claiming a District 11 Class 3A championship in 1989, Nazareth (12-1 overall) advanced to the PIAA Class 4A quarterfinals. The Blue Eagles will face District 12 champion La Salle College High in a 1 p.m. game Saturday at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium.


Beating Easton (11-3) provided a fitting cap to Nazareth's breakthrough season. The Blue Eagles owned a 1-21 all-time record against Easton before 2011. They beat Easton twice this season, claiming a 35-28 win in Week 2 that helped set them on the path to their first Lehigh Valley Conference title before downing it again Saturday to deny the Red Rovers a third straight district championship.

"This team looked up to a lot of those guys that are on the field – Danny Wilk, Chuck Dibilio, Anthony Stampone, Shawn Mitchell – those guys are the ones that really grinded at the start of it," said Melosky, who is in his fourth year as Nazareth's coach. "This year's championship team just carried the torch and followed them. That's all you can ask for."

Harding has served as the on-field leader during Nazareth's run this season, and he again showed his poise Saturday. He started the night 2-for-7 for 9 yards on the Blue Eagles' first two possessions. Easton, meanwhile, scored on its first two possessions to open a 14-0 lead.

By the end of the first half, Harding had thrown for 202 yards and three touchdowns, and the Blue Eagles owned a 21-14 advantage. Two of his touchdown throws came in the final 4:21 of the half.

Alex Tonnies did much of the work on the first throw, catching a pass, turning and outrunning the Easton defenders for a 63-yard touchdown grab that left the game tied 14-14. He finished with six catches for 117 yards.

Nazareth grabbed the lead with a 14-play, 75-yard touchdown drive right before the half that featured two fourth-down conversions. The second one came as Harding rolled right and threw back across the field to Dan Shepherd, who caught the ball inside the 5-yard line and ran into the left corner of the end zone to convert a fourth-and-13 play into a 17-yard touchdown.

Harding finished 20-for-32 for 259 yards.

"We were down 14-0, but we just stuck to our game plan," Harding said. "We didn't get frustrated. We just had to bounce back and sew up some things. It was a team effort, and everyone did a great job."

Nazareth pushed its lead to 28-14 on the first drive of the third quarter when freshman running back Jordan Gray (36 carries, 148 yards) scored from 1 yard out with 7:01 to go. Easton, as usual, would not go away. The Red Rovers got two straight stops, including a red zone interception of Harding, before marching 85 yards for a touchdown with 4:57 to go that pulled them within seven.

They would never get the ball back. On its ensuing possession, Nazareth produced three first downs. The first came when Harding hit Tonnies for 15 yards on a third-and-14 play. Gray clinched the game six plays later with a 7-yard run that allowed the Blue Eagles to take a knee on the game's final snap.

"The line just told me to push and go off of them," Gray said after going over 1,500 yards for the season. "I couldn't ask for anything more than to feed off of them. I knew we were going to get it."

What the Blue Eagles have now is a chance to play for a spot in the state semifinals. They are one of eight Class 4A teams in Pennsylvania that will play in December. That's a long way from where they were in 2008, when they went 3-7 in Melosky's first year at the helm.

"It's a program, like coach Melosky always says," Harding said. "The [former players] worked hard for it, but we got to get the accolades for it."

http://www.mcall.com/sports/varsity/mc-football-easton-nazareth-1126-20111126,0,1907318.story