Sophomore tailback Jason Harper slipped around the left end for a seven-yard score with 29 seconds remaining to lift the White team to a 17-14 victory over the Cherry team in the Temple football squad’s annual spring scrimmage on Saturday afternoon in Ambler, Pa.Harper’s touchdown run capped a wild second half that started with a 70-yard TD pass from wide receiver Bruce Francis to fellow wideout Dy’Onne Crudup and ended with Crudup getting crushed on an attempted hook and lateral play.
The White team drove 43 yards for the winning score, taking possession after sophomore linebacker Omar McDonnaugh-Hales blocked a 36-yard field goal attempt by redshirt freshman Garrett Clawson. Sophomore safety Dominique Harris recovered the blocked kick and returned it into Cherry territory.
“I broke through and I was just there,” said McDonnaugh-Hales, a walk-on transfer from Lackawanna (Pa.) Junior College who joined the team in January. “I put my hands up the way they teach you to put your hands up, and it went through my hands and hit my helmet.”
Sophomore quarterback Vaughn Charlton directed the game-winning drive, which started with two incomplete passes before Charlton hit junior wideout Travis Shelton for an 18-yard gain. He followed with a seven-yard pass to Harper and an 11-yard pass to Shelton, before Harper finished off the drive with a nifty dash to the left corner.
Charlton completed 19 of 30 pass attempts for 212 yards and a touchdown in the contest. Harper led all rushers with 12 carries for 42 yards. He did lose a fumble at the Cherry 2-yard line in the middle of the third quarter.
For the Cherry team, junior quarterback Adam DiMichele faced a lot of early pressure and finished 7 of 12 for 91 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. DiMichele was sacked three of the first seven times he dropped back to pass. Another time, he scrambled for a 10-yard gain.
Junior tailback Marcellous Grigsby led the Cherry team with 10 carries for 27 yards. Like most of his teammates, he did his best work in the second half.
Charlton opened the game with a terrific series, completing three straight third down passes to lead the White team into scoring position. Senior wideout Domerio Hamilton caught two of the passes, while Shelton caught the other. There were a couple operational hiccups, as Charlton was forced to call a timeout after Shelton got in the wrong alignment, and later an offensive lineman was whistled for a false start.
The drive chewed up more than 10 minutes on the running clock before sophomore Jake Brownell trotted onto the field and booted a 40-yard field goal.
The early defensive star was the same as the late hero, McDonnaugh-Hales, who collected three tackles and a sack on the Cherry team’s first series. The White defense limited the Cherry offense to one first down in the entire first half.
Midway through the second quarter, Charlton engineered another long drive, highlighted by a 16-yard pass to Hamilton and a 24-yard completion to Shelton on 3rd-and-17. The White team was fortunate to keep possession after sophomore linebacker Le’Ron Irwin jarred the ball loose from sophomore fullback Alex DiMichele with a crunching hit. DiMichele’s fumble sailed out-of-bounds.
With 54 seconds left until halftime, Charlton hit sophomore tight end Steve Maneri with a two-yard touchdown pass. Brownell’s extra point extended the lead to 10-0.
Following a sluggish first half, the Cherry offense stunned the White defense with a gadget play to open the third quarter. DiMichele rolled to his left and then pitched the ball to Francis, who was coming back to the right. Down the field, Crudup got a step on sophomore cornerback Anthony Ferla, who wasn’t badly fooled by the play, but was still unable to defend a terrific throw from Francis.
“A lot of people don’t know I used to play quarterback in high school,” Francis said. “So when they gave me the opportunity to do that, I heard it on the sideline, I was all for it. I got the reverse and saw my man Dy’Onne running downfield, and I just tried to throw it like I know how.”
Crudup did the rest, hauling in the pass and racing ahead of the pack for a 70-yard score.
Ahead by three, Charlton answered the challenge, completing five of six passes on the next drive. Two of them went to Hamilton, who finished with five receptions for 88 yards. Shelton totaled five catches for 67 yards.
But the White team got nothing after Harper fumbled the ball out of the back of the endzone.
The latter part of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter were somewhat sloppy, with DiMichele overthrowing a pass that was picked off by Harris, then Brownell having a 32-yard field goal attempt tipped at the line of scrimmage and hitting the crossbar.
There was also some special teams trouble throughout the game with punt snaps. On punt plays, the only players on the field were the long snapper, the punter, and someone to make a fair catch. Junior Travis Manger’s first snap to redshirt freshman Jonathan Boyer was too high for Boyer to handle cleanly, and his second was too low. Both sides were sound in making the fair catch.
In the fourth quarter, the Cherry offense put together its only solid drive of the contest. Junior tight end Kevin Armstrong sparked the drive with a terrific catch for a 24-yard gain. Grigsby had a 12-yard run, then a seven-yard run, and DiMichele completed an eight-yard pass to walk-on sophomore Ricky Uebberoth on 3rd-and-6 at the White 19.
With 2:58 to go, DiMichele hit Armstrong with a six-yard scoring toss, and it appeared that the Cherry team was going to steal away the victory.
The result seemed even more certain when, one minute later, Charlton and junior center Marcos Hanna misconnected on the snap, and junior cornerback Evan Cooper dove in to recover the fumble for the Cherry squad.
But the momentum swung one last time with the big play by McDonnaugh-Hales.
Sophomore linebacker Lamar McPherson led the White team with eight tackles, including a sack. McDonnaugh-Hales had four tackles and a sack. Sophomore defensive tackle Andre Neblett and sophomore defensive end Brian Sanford both had sacks.
For the Cherry defense, sophomore linebacker Dave Chiavacci had seven tackles, including one sack. Junior defensive end Leyon Azubuike had five tackles, including 2.5 tackles for loss. Junior safety Georg Coleman had six tackles and a pass breakup.
“The guys played hard,” Coach Al Golden said afterward. “It was fun. This is what we tried to do with this today, have a good environment. We had a nice day. A lot of Temple fans came out here to watch us play. And I thought the kids embraced it and they had fun, which was great.
“That’s what we were trying to get out of Cherry and White and having a (full-fledged) game (instead of a controlled scrimmage), just kind of building a team a little bit. It was good.”