Delran takes initiative, but can't quite finish deal in opening-day loss to Wayne Valley
OCEAN CITY -- The buy-in came in the second half.
The Delran football team showed a little bit of its promise in response to an early deficit against Wayne Valley High School at the Battle at the Beach at Ocean City High School. The Bears put their best drive together and scored on Derek Namnun's bootleg from the 1 to get within three points.
"We wanted to go," Namnun said. "We were ready. We saw what they were doing. We made a couple of adjustments and put our heads on right, and we were going."
But as quickly as it came together, it fell apart. Wayne Valley was back in the end zone four plays later.
Alex Scheuplein threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Justin Mondestin, and the Indians went on to earn a 17-13 victory in the opening game for both teams.
Namnun added a 38-yard touchdown pass to Kamil Yilmaz with 1:56 left in the game, but an onside kick at that point was caught by the Indians' Brandon Kinder, and an encroachment penalty -- on fourth and 1 with 5 seconds left -- extinguished any hopes the Bears had of a miracle finish.
Three things we learned
Special teams has suffered: Friday night a bad snap cost Vineland seven points in a game it lost, 7-6. Saturday Wayne Valley muffed a punt to keep a Delran drive going and picked up three points after Zachary Miron crashed in untouched from the right side to block a Bears' punt. When teams rush through preparation, in a now-shortened offseason, that's the part of the game that gets neglected.
Delran is ahead of schedule: It was certainly a fair assessment to look at the players the Bears graduated and decide they'd be a rebuilding team this year, but Delran is better than that. Namnun can make plays with his arms and his legs, and Yilmaz, getting up in the air to outfight a defender for that touchdown pass was one of Saturday's highlights.
Watch the ball: A pass interference penalty helped keep Delran's first scoring drive alive. Half the distance to the goal put the Bears at the Wayne Valley 6, but didn't give them a first down. An encroachment penalty took care of that a moment later. The Bears chose the worst possible moment to return that favor -- with the Indians facing a fourth and 1 at the Bears' 41 with five seconds left.
Game balls
Namnun was 14-for-23 passing for 96 yards and a touchdown and also ran for a score. Scheuplein ran 13 times for 62 yards and a 1-yard touchdown. He was 12-for-24 passing for 138 yards and another score. Mondestin had one touchdown that counted and perhaps one that didn't. He came up with Scheuplein's fourth-down heave into the end zone with 1:54 left in the first half, but the official on top of the play ruled that he'd trapped the ball on the ground.
They said it
Delran quarterback Derek Namnun:
"It's a positive experience. We have a really young core to our team that really got to learn the offense this summer. We came out here and got a good test. We're not happy with a loss; there's obviously a lot to improve on. But it was a positive experience for us."
Delran coach Frank Holmes:
"All I wanted to see today was the kids battle and battle. They faced adversity early on, which is a great thing; you're going to be facing adversity all season. And to say they responded is an understatement. They battled so hard, I'm so proud of them. You never want to lose a game, but I'll take what they gave us today."
Wayne Valley quarterback Alex Scheuplein, on his touchdown pass:
"I knew it was going to be a great play. Pump fake, three-step drop, then I just heaved it up, and I knew my guy was going to catch the ball. Once I threw that ball, I knew that if our team could stay up on defense, we were going to win. Defense had to play their game."
John A. Lewis is a sports writer for the Burlington County Times, Courier Post and The Daily Journal. E-mail him at jlewis@thebct.com or follow on Twitter @JohnLewis19. Please consider supporting local journalism with a subscription
This article originally appeared on Burlington County Times: Delran comes up just short in opener at Battle at the Beach
