Tamaqua romps past Salisbury
SALISBURY TOWNSHIP — Tamaqua’s offense presents a lot for a defense to worry about.
The Blue Raiders have more than a couple versatile skill players and a line that gives them the time and space to make bigs plays.
Led by Victor Schlosser’s three touchdowns, Tamaqua seemed to make plays at will in a 49-7 win at Salisbury on Friday that kept the Raiders (5-0, 4-0 Red) unbeaten.
“If I was on their defense, it would be really hard (to key on one player),” said Schlosser. “There’s a lot of weapons.”
Schlosser caught five passes for 147 yards and ran three times for 38 yards, with two of his runs going for touchdowns.
Quarterback Luke Kane added a pair of scores and 99 yards rushing on seven carries. He also threw for 105 yards and one score.
“We have a quarterback that can run and throw the ball,” said Tamaqua head coach Sam Bonner. “We have Victor who can catch and run the ball. Throw in (Tyler) Koch who is a tough fullback for us, blocks well and runs it. And you’ve got Brad Whalen, who is sort of an inside-outside guy. That’s not even to mention (tight end) Declan Coleman, who didn’t have any catches today but did a good job blocking for us.”
Tamaqua scored on each of its first four drives to take a 28-0 lead into halftime.
Schlosser had touchdown runs of 18 and 10 yards to get things going. He caught a 45-yard touchdown pass to make it 21-0 less than halfway through the second quarter.
The senior set up his team’s fourth touchdown when he caught a short pass and raced 78 yards to the Salisbury 2-yard line before Kane ran it in on the next play.
“When we run the ball well, it enables us to throw the ball better, obviously,” said Bonner. “Victor is one of those guys we like to get him out in space. We hit him on those quick screens and it gives him an opportunity to make plays. A five-yard pass becomes a 70-yard pass really quick.”
The Raiders got the game to the mercy rule when Kane broke free for a 56-yard touchdown run on the second play of the second half.
“They’re just so efficient,” said Salisbury head coach Kevin DiZenzo. “As an offensive line coach coming up myself, that was just a great job in the trenches. Kudos to those guys.”
Tamaqua rushed for 312 yards in the game and passed for 150 yards.
“Our line up front really drove down,” said Kane. “Damian Jazowksi put some big blocks on kids tonight. Malachi Stewart, Luke Fronheiser, Declan Franz, they made some big blocks and we really jumped them tonight on the run game. They started to blitz a lot on the run game and we hit them over the top.”
While the Raiders’ offense was unstoppable, their defense was equally impressive.
Led by three sacks from lineman Jacob Hehn and two from linebacker Koch, Tamaqua sacked Salisbury quarterback Andrew Lucas nine times for a loss of 58 yards. The Falcons, which scored 70 points over the previous two weeks in wins over Wilson and Catasauqua, had negative-32 yards of total offense in the first half.
“Our defensive line is phenomenal,” said Kane. “They’re always putting pressure on the quarterback. They’re always back there.”
Tamaqua held Salisbury’s Jason St. Leger to just 13 yards on eight carries. The senior ran for four touchdowns last week against Catty and had four in the season opener against Panther Valley, but never got close to paydirt Friday night.
“That was their guy,” said Schlosser. “We watched film on him and knew what they were going to do.”
Salisbury’s offense only crossed midfield three times in the game, and one of them was by just two yards.
The Falcons did manage to break the shutout with a touchdown drive midway through the fourth quarter when most of Tamaqua’s starters had come out of the game.
Terrence McDowell and Ace Schickram also scored late touchdowns for the Raiders.
The win gives Tamaqua its best start in five years.
“We knew we had a good senior class,” said Bonner, “and we had a good core of kids coming back from a team that won five its last six (regular-season games). We wanted to build off of that and I think we’ve done a good job so far.”
NO SCHLOWING DOWN … Schlosser has 22 receptions for 403 yards through the first half of the season.
PERFECT AT HALFWAY POINT … The 5-0 start is the Raiders’ best since going 5-0 en route to winning the 2019 District 11 title. That season they lost to Pottsville in their sixth game but finished 8-2 in the regular season before winning five straight playoff games to reach the state semifinal.
