SPRINGFIELD — Back in August, Springfield battered Marple Newtown by 34 points, so when the two teams advanced to the District 1 Class 5A quarterfinals, some observers might have thought that the Cougars would have a cakewalk into the semifinals. Not so fast. While Springfield did ultimately win the game 21-14, the Tigers battled the Cougars every yard of the way.
“Marple has been playing good football all year. They got healthy and got some guys back. We knew this was going to be a test,” said Springfield coach Chris Britton, whose team improved to 11-1 and will move on to face Central League counterpart Garnet Valley next weekend in the district semifinals.
The Tigers did, indeed, push the Cougars to the limit. Marple Newtown used an aggressive run defense to limit the bruising and dangerous backfield tandem of Brad Barber and Nate Romano. The duo was still impactful for the Cougars, but it was clear that the Tigers were not going to let them run wild.
Unfortunately for Marple Newtown, Tanner Coll was able to provide the big offensive spark when the Cougars needed it. “We have a lot of good players. We can share the wealth and we don’t rely on one guy,” Britton said.
“It’s a lot of ‘we’ and not ‘me’ and (Coll) got his number called tonight. We had a lot of guys step up and that’s the luxury of this team.” Early in the fourth quarter, with the game knotted at 14-14, Coll capped off a long drive for Springfield with a terrific six-yard scoring run .
