Wyomissing grinds out 41-24 victory in hard-fought 'Backyard Brawl'

Sep. 17—Wyomissing coach Bob Wolfrum said that he believed the Spartans' matchup with Berks Catholic would be tough regardless of the teams' records heading into Friday night's "Backyard Brawl."

He was right.

Wyomissing fullback Matthew Kramer ran for four second-half touchdowns to lead the Spartans back from a three-point halftime deficit and defeat Berks Catholic 41-24 in a Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 4 opener and maintain the Keeley-Wolfrum Trophy.

"They (the Spartans) were really frustrated at halftime with how we were playing," said Wolfrum, whose team was playing its archrivals for the first time since 2019. "But the fact that we came back in the second half and played the way we played, it shows we have some fight in us. And we're not going to give up when things are looking bad.

"It was a good experience for us to have to come back after digging a hole. They (the Saints) were all really excited, you could hear it. You got to weather that and get back onto your feet and into your own game. So we did that and I'm sure we'll see them again later in the year."

Ryker Jones opened the scoring for Wyomissing (1-0, 4-0) on the Spartans' opening possession when he scored on an 11-yard run with 8:23 left in the first quarter.

After a tight first half that almost saw Wyomissing take a 7-0 lead into the locker room, the Saints (0-1, 0-4) began to state their case for an upset bid.

Berks Catholic began a drive at its 20 with under two minutes to go and quickly got into Spartans territory when Nafis Blythe ran for 42 yards run from the Saints' 33 into the Wyomissing red zone. Blythe was one of four rushers with over 100 yards as the junior finished with 121 yards on 12 carries.

Two plays later, Saints quarterback William Hess floated a 15-yard pass to Jay Jay Jordan in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown. Andrew Kurtas tied it with a successful extra point kick. Jordan finished with an interception as well as 111 rushing yards on top of the 15-yard TD reception.

Kurtas helped Berks Catholic take the lead moments later when Wyomissing fumbled the squib kick, which gave the ball back to the Saints at the Spartans' 27 with one second left in the half. He then converted a 44-yard field goal as time expired.

"I'm disappointed that we lost, but I am so proud of the effort that these kids gave out here tonight," Berks Catholic coach Rick Keeley said. "That is a great football team and we gave them everything that they could handle tonight. To win at halftime, with a lead like that, I was just so proud. But I let them know, 'Hey, that team's gonna come out and they're gonna play a great second half; we have to match it.' We gave it our best; we gave it our best and they beat us."

Berks Catholic got the ball to start the second half, but Wyomissing was able to force a punt and get the ball back at its 14. From there, the Spartans started to get their run game going.

A six-play, 86-yard drive was capped when Kramer scored his first rushing touchdown of the night from the Saints' 6. Shortly after, a fumble by Devin Garcia gave the Spartans the ball on the Saints' 42.

Wyomissing's next scoring drive would only take two plays as Kramer scored a 33-yard rushing touchdown to give the Spartans a double-digit lead at 20-10.

"There's a lot of stuff we need to work on," Kramer said. "Obviously, we were down in the first half. We really weren't playing our game; a lot of guys were out of position and not doing their job. But I think in the second half, we really picked up the intensity, did our jobs and things worked well. We scored 34 in the second (half) and seven in the first (half)."

The Saints would not go down quietly. With 2:16 remaining in the third quarter, a tipped pass from Hess found the hands of fullback Michael Bradley, who made the catch and ran 66 yards for a touchdown to cut it to 20-17.

Senior running back Drew Eisenhower helped extend the lead to 27-17 by running 85 yards on the last play of the third quarter to set up a 1-yard rushing touchdown for Kramer.

Kramer finished with 121 rushing yards. Eisenhower had 183 rushing yards and a touchdown.

"I guess it's four because I didn't really run the ball much last year because of Tommy Grabowski," Kramer said on reaching his career high of four rushing touchdowns in a game. "But sometimes when I do that (score), I feel a little selfish because Drew (Eisenhower) gets all the way up there and then I punch it in from the 2-yard line, but he's still getting the yards.

"I think our offensive line is dominant. Our guys know what they're doing."

Indeed, running behind a big offensive line led by Penn State commit J'ven Williams has been advantageous for all the Wyomissing rushers. The Spartans rushed for 397 yards on Friday and have totaled 1,320 over four games.

"It's really simple: Our line is very disciplined," Williams said. "We don't need big guys to score. We have smaller guys like John Gartner that just have a lot of heart, and you know, we got big guys that can move. We just work together, we work as one team and we just get the job done."

With his agility, Williams said he enjoys being the lead blocker on many plays, such as the sweep that the Spartans frequently go to.

"I love it," Williams said. "That's my favorite play and that's a big play for us. Getting out in the open for our running backs, like Charlie (McIntyre) over there; it's amazing to be able to open up holes for guys like that. They just make my job so much easier."

Down 27-17 with a quarter to go, Berks Catholic continued to put up a fight. Jordan scored a 63-yard run on the second play of the Saints' first drive of the fourth to make it 27-24 with 11:10 to go.

After that, Wyomissing's ground game continued to control the clock and momentum.

A 2-yard touchdown run by Kramer capped the ensuing Spartans' drive with 6:23 to go. The Saints turned it over on downs on their next possession before Eisenhower scored on a 20-yard run.

A successful Levering extra point closed out the scoring at 41-24.

"The kids are working hard to get it (a win) and sooner or later, it's going to come," Keeley said. "But, you know, I got to be proud of the effort that these young kids gave tonight. I've been coaching a long time and I don't let numbers on the scoreboard dictate how our team should feel. We should just feel great with the effort that we had tonight. You get an effort like that from your kids. You got to be happy as a coach."

For Wyomissing, the hard-fought win gives it confidence moving forward.

"This is one of the best rivalries in Berks County," Williams said. "Without having it for two years, we've been looking forward to this for so long. They're a good team, they have a really hard schedule, but we're happy to get games like this against big rivals. We're really proud of ourselves.

"There's going to be a whole bunch of games that are harder, games like this, and we're going to keep giving it to them every single game."