District 11 Top Returning Players for the 2019 season week 5

by Duke Helm

RUNNINGBACKS:    

Asher Smith of Southern Lehigh rushed for 280 yards and scored 3 td’s in their win over Palisades.  Smith has rushed for 963 yards and a District leading 17 td’s this season.  Nahjee Adams of Easton is the first District player to go over the 1,000-yard rushing mark this year.  Adams has rushed for 1,033 yards and scored 12 td’s in the first 5 games.  Qb, Danny Lawrence of Mahanoy Area is 3rd in the District with 926 yards rushing.  Lawrence has scored 11 td’s this season and now has 39 for his career.  CJ Selby of Jim Thorpe rushed for 250 yards and 2 td’s in their win over Midd-West.  Selby went over 3,000 yards for his career (3,048) and like Lawrence, he also has 39 career td’s.  Brandon Camire of Emmaus has rushed for 809 yards and is 2nd in the District with 16 td’s scored.  Brady Miller of Williams Valley rounds out the runningbacks with 800 or more yards this season with his 807 yards.  Nate Boyle of Tamaqua scored 4 td’s last week and now has 15 on the season and 61 for his career.  Kobe Brish of Schuylkill Haven remains in 6th place all-time in the District for career rushing yards with 6,326 yards.  Dylan Rabuck of Williams Valley (2014-17) is in 5th place with 6,421 yards.  Brish scored 4 times last week and now has 90 career td’s which moves him up from 5th to 4th place.  He moves ahead of Pen Argyl’s Woody Petchel who scored 88 td’s from 1968-71.  Tyrese Brandon of Northampton scored 4 more td’s in their win over PM West to break the school’s career td record.  Brandon now has 45 career td’s which is 2 more than Tommy Rohn’s 43 that he scored from 1996-99.  Brandon also caught 4 passes for 151 yards with 2 of them going for td’s.  Junior, Nick Henry of Northwestern scored 4 td’s in their win over Bangor and now has 12 on the season and 26 for his career.  Jalen Stewart of Freedom has 29 career td’s which is one behind school record holder Mike Lawrence.  Lawrence scored 30 td’s from 1981-83 to go along with his school-record 2,459 rushing yards. 

QUARTERBACKS:                                        

Scott Schwalm of Minersville threw for a District record 492 yards in their 70-49 loss to Schuylkill Valley.  Schwalm completed 33 passes and threw 5 td’s passes.  The old District record was held by Ryan Roeder of Bethlehem Catholic.  In 1996, Roeder threw for 479 yards vs Central Catholic in a similar loss (70-40).  Schwalm now leads the District with his 1,130 yards.  Schwalm also broke Brandon Marshall’s career passing yardage record.  Marshall had 3,217 yards from 1993-96 and Schwalm now has 3,352 yards.  Bryce Herb of Williams Valley is 3rd in the District with 913 yards passing after passing for a school-record 336 yards and a school tying 5 td’s passes last week.  Cole Ciesnolevicz held the old record when he threw for 329 yards vs Halifax in 1999.  Ira Wren (1979), Jim McNeal (1989) and Levi Engle (2017) all threw 5 td’s in a game.  Deven Bollinger of Northwestern leads the District with 17 td’s passes.   His 79 career td passes is still 5th best all-time in the District.  Bollinger also went over 6,000 yards for his career and now has 6,097 yards.  Anthony Harris of Nazareth has now thrown 6,150 yards career passing yards which is a new school record.  Ryan Fry held the old record when he threw for 6,120 yards from 1995-98.  Brayden Knoblauch of Tamaqua now holds the school record for career td’s passes with his 34.  Quintin Stephens of Salisbury threw for 206 yards last week and is now in 2nd place in the District with 945 passing yards.  Bollinger has 942 yards and Jared Jenkins of Freedom has 901 yards this season.  Cole Transue of Easton had his first career 200-yard game when he threw for 230 yards in their come from behind win against Emmaus.  Quinn Wentling of Whitehall threw for 211 yards last week in his first varsity start.  Joe Kerbacher of Northampton threw for 220 yards and 4 td’s in their win over PM West.  For the season, Kerbacher has thrown for 695 yards and 8 td passes.  Joe Fullmer of ES South threw for 206 yards and 5 td’s in his first varsity start.  Fullmer and Kerbacher will square off tonight.  

RECEIVERS:   

Nathan Stefanik of Nazareth leads the District with 28 catches through 5 games.  Stefanik moves into the top ten all-time in the District for career receptions.  He now has 141 career catches and is in tenth place.  Bob Frederick of Allen drops out of the top ten with his 138 catches that he had from 1971-73.   Gabe Davis of Minersville caught a school-record 13 catches for another school-record 261 yards and 3 td’s last week.  Jeff Brennan held the old reception record when he caught 10 passes vs Jim Thorpe in 2001.  Shane Ryan had school-record 150 reception yards vs Marian Catholic in 2006.  Other Miners’ with 3 td catches in a game are Jerry Neveras vs Tamaqua in 1965, Mark Pizzico vs Nativity in 1988 and Dave Sekellick vs Southern Columbia in 1995.  Davis now has 27 catches for a District leading 526 yards and 8 td grabs.  His 8 td catches this year are also a new school record.  Pizzico in 1988 and Bryce Ellinger in 2017 both had 7 td receptions in a season.  Jayden Cruz of Williams Valley caught 4 passes for 200 yards and a td in their win over Juniata last week.  Chad Parton of Salisbury caught 9 passes for 144 yards and 2 td’s in their win over Notre Dame.  Parton leads the Colonial league with 26 catches for 479 yards and 8 td grabs.  Matt Kistler of Tamaqua now has 7 td receptions on the year.  He caught 7 as a sophomore and 7 as a junior and upped his career school-record total to 21.  Other Blue Raiders with 7 td receptions in a season are Rick Fenstermacher in 1974, Anthony Bumbulsky in 2009.  The school-record is 8 which Dustin Vandermartin had in 2012 in his junior year.  Allen Negrete of Whitehall has 20 career td catches.  Gabe Caton of Freedom and Justin Rodda of Northwestern both went over 1,000 yards receiving for their careers.