WARRINGTON — It hadn’t worked the first time, but Owen Pinkerton didn’t think twice about putting one up for Danny Gies.
After a dominant first half, Central Bucks South had been put on its heels by visiting Upper Dublin in the third quarter Friday night. The Cardinals were a stop on third-and-long away from forcing a punt going into the fourth when Pinkerton put one up, Gies went up over a defender to catch it then galloped the rest of the 78 yards for a backbreaking score.
Pinkerton, the Titans senior quarterback, put together a big night as CB South downed Upper Dublin 33-7 to stay undefeated.
“I don’t think we were as consistent as we wanted to be but the mental toughness of the o-line and the defense, nothing can really stop us,” Pinkerton said. “Even if we came out flat in the second half, we’re like a machine, we can just keep going and going so that’s kind of what it is.
“Coach (Tom) Hetrick preaches that, no matter who we’re playing, no matter what the score is, just keep going.”
Pinkerton, also the starting quarterback on last year’s District 1-6A championship team, had a terrific game while accounting for four of the Titans’ five touchdowns. He threw for three of them, completing 11-of-18 passes for 203 yards and ate yards on the ground, picking up 87 yards and a score on 12 carries.
Last year, South had a dominant offensive line and a powerful run game but it’s a relatively new bunch up front and making up the often-shifting backfield around Pinkerton. It’s still early in the season, but the senior has been pulling the strings efficiently and gave plenty of credit to his new group of blockers.
Behind every good quarterback, in front of them to be more accurate, is a good offensive line. The Titans group of Dilan Monteiro, Elliot Francesco, Shea Fullerton and Matt Offner, along with tight ends Dan McCusker and Andrew Lisovskiy have more than done the job of letting their dual-threat QB1 do his thing.
“We had a lot of guys last year who didn’t get the opportunity to play but were still really, really good and that’s a credit to how good our o-line was last year,” Pinkerton said. “I think watching those guys gave them an example and after seeing how crazy that o-line was, they know if they work just as hard, they can do the same. I tell them that and they’re looking to do the same as last year.”
Upper Dublin, by way of Ron Shepherd’s 20-yard third quarter run, became the first offense to score a touchdown on CB South’s defense this season. In the first half however, the Titans were dominant on that side of the ball while holding the Cardinals to five first downs and not letting the visitors past midfield until they went hurry-up in the final seconds. Eddie Bowen and Reid Ermigiotti both had sacks and Ermigiotti recovered an Upper Dublin fumble in the first half.
As crisp as they were in the first half, the Titans didn’t have the same results after halftime. They were flagged 11 times total in the game and it was three personal fouls totaling 45 yards that aided the UD scoring drive.
Gies, a senior who plays defensive back along with receiver, knew his team wasn’t going to post a touchdown shutout streak all year but he felt the overall performance needed to be better.
“Every series is a new series, we’re going to watch film and clean up whatever we did this week,” Gies said. “We have to come out cleaner than we did. Personal fouls, that’s the last thing we want. We came into this year, it’s something Hetrick wanted to clean up so we have to be more mentally tough the rest of the season.”
Upper Dublin fell to 1-2, the Cardinals losing their SOL crossover games with CB West and CB South ahead of next week’s league opener at Council Rock North. UD’s second half was markedly better than its first on Friday, the defense forcing punts on the first two South possessions bookending Shepherd’s scoring run.
What coach Bret Stover brought up with his team after the fact was that there’s still plenty of work to be done. The longtime Cardinals coach noted the challenges of playing West and South, both Class 6A programs, back to back
“We kept making mistakes against West and South that we can’t overcome yet,” Stover said. “Later in the year, maybe we can overcome them but we are getting better. The defense played really spirited tonight.
“It’s hard to prepare for them in three days with all their shifts and changes and No. 7 (Pinkerton) runs that offense to perfection.”
Stover’s main concern coming out of the last two weeks was health. UD picked up a couple injuries on Friday night and he noted the overwhelming advantage the SOL National teams had in the win-loss column over their SOL Continental opponents the last two weeks.
“It helps us, but it doesn’t make sense at the end of the day,” Stover said. “I got a lot of guys that play both ways, they got beat up last week and they got beat up this week. We’ll have to deal with that next week but so will CR North, they’ll be in the same boat. It’s frustrating to me that people don’t see that, but they’re not going to change it so we show up and play.”
So there it was, facing a 3rd-and-23 on their own 22, that Pinkerton took his shot down the field. Gies was able to high-point the ball over the crown of the defender’s helmet and when he came down alone, the senior wideout ran the rest of the way to make it a 26-7 game with 55.9 left in the third.
“If he throws it up, I’m going to go get it,” Gies said.
“He saved us a little bit,” Pinkerton said. “He got us going after that throw. It was a toss up on third-and-long, so that was huge.”
Pinkerton capped his night with a third TD pass, one that took an unintended route to its target. The senior had McCusker picked out in the end zone, but fullback Jack Bartollio put a hand on the ball, tipping it and forcing McCusker into an outstanding one-handed diving catch.
“Bart, he’s a fullback so he wanted the touchdown and even though the ball was way behind him, he decided to throw his hand out for that,” Pinkerton said. “He tipped and I thought Dan had no shot to catch it, then everyone started cheering and I thought ‘no way he caught that.’”
The Titans may have a good amount of new names around the field on offense this season, but they also have the right player keeping it all together behind center.
“He plays a huge role, you don’t see teams with the amount of designed QB runs that he does,” Gies said. “We trust him to hit a hole and when he does, his speed is ridiculous then for a quarterback to put his shoulder down and run through a defender, I’ve never seen anyone as tough as Owen.”
CB South 33, Upper Dublin 7
Upper Dublin 0 0 7 0 – 7
Central Bucks South 7 14 6 6 – 33
SCORING
First Quarter
CBS – Owen Pinkerton 19 pass to Braylen Cape (Adis Formielo kick) 5:07
Second Quarter
CBS – Gavin Graham 2 run (Formielo kick) 11:16.
CBS – Pinkerton 22 run (Formielo kick) 58.0.
Third Quarter
UD – Ron Shepherd 20 run (Matthew Miller kick) 7:26.
CBS – Pinkerton 78 pass to Danny Gies (kick miss) 55.9.
Fourth Quarter
CBS – Pinkerton 11 pass to Dan McCusker (kick block) 6:02.
Team Statistics
CBS UD
First Downs 21 10
Rushes-Yards 33-187 21-102
Passing 11-18-3-0 13-21-0-0
Passing Yards 203 92
Total Yards 390 194
Fumbles-Lost 0-0 1-1
Penalties-Yards 11-125 6-50
Punting Average 2-33.5 4-28
Individual Statistics
Rushing: CBS – Kaden Kube 9-58, Owen Pinkerton 12-87, Gavin Graham 5-15, Braylen Cape 2-2, Colin White 4-25, Cade Crim 1-1; UD – MJ Stokes 4-(-1), Kevin Etkin 5-43, Ron Shepherd 10-57, Shane Greenbeg 1-5, Lucas Platt 1-(-2).
Passing: CBS – Pinkerton 11-18-3-0-203; UD – Etkin 13-19-0-0-92, Jacob Reif 0-2-0-0-0.
Receiving: CBS – Danny Gies 4-113, Matt Harmon 3-46, Cape 2-27, Eddie Bowen 1-6, Dan McCusker 1-11; UD – Eric Berman 1-13, Ryan O’Sullivan 6-47, Benji Ravitz 1-0, Wesley Gill 3-26, Gavin Lapa 1-1, Shane Greenberg 1-5.
Sacks: CBS – Reid Ermigiotti, Eddie Bowen.
