With the 2009 season finally here, opening night at the Ridge in Langhorne couldn’t have provided a better stage for the first grid game of the season. And as the weather was fully cooperative, the fans were clearly out in force. Plus not wanting to disappoint, our Redskins looked sharp as they were clearly ready to play some football.

Hosting the Souderton Indians of the SOL, Continental Conference, it wasn’t long before fullback Corey Majors busted a 35-yard run to put the first Tribe points on the board of the young campaign. With the score 7-0 following the point after, it wasn’t much later before Brian Titus located Bryan Dean on a nice pass that he took 34 yards for another Schmidtmen six-pointer. The PAT was missed, though, with the scoreboard then reading 13-0 for the Langhorne squad.

Mixing it up a bit, Charlie Marterella came in to spell Titus and spotted Rick Brebner racing to the promised land as he delivered a beautiful air-strike that covered 37 yards and made it 19-0 for the Creek Kids. Marterella then pin-pointed Dylan Lange as the ‘Skins went up 21-0 on the strength of the two-point conversion.

With the first half just about over, and Neshaminy looking strong on both sides, a Ridgeman got a little lax and lost the handle on the pill. An alert Indian pounced on the loose ball and Souderton soon pushed one across from in close; however, with the conversion attempt a failure, the teams retired for the break with the score 21-6 in favor of the Moleskinners.

The third period saw Souderton take the kickoff with the two teams a bit lethargic throughout that session. Punctuated by some sloppy play and mid-field exchanges, neither club seemed to care to take command and the twelve minutes expired without a score by either the Redskins or the Indians.

The fourth started off with the visitors finding a little life in the air. Driving for a score, it was only a tremendous play by Ariel Hoffman that saw him intercept the ball in the endzone and stop a serious Souderton threat. Taking over at the twenty after the pick, it was Titus at the controls as the ‘Skins clearly needed to step it up with ten minutes left to go in the contest. And that’s just what they did as they drove the eighty yards to the back ten in just about four minutes with Dean doing the heavy lifting along the way. In fact, it was Dean that lugged it across on a six-yard scamper that saw Neshaminy go up 28-6 after the PAT was true.

As the clock was then showing just about six-minutes left in the game, and with Souderton unable to mount any more offense, the ‘Skins had the ball back not too much later. And deciding it was then time to showcase his speed, Ricky “The Rocket” Williams took one the distance on a 73-yard explosion. With the extra point on the money, the clock spun to read 35-6 for Neshaminy just shy of the two-minute mark. Kicking off to the Indians, it was Kyle Rosnick who then put an exclamation point on the game when he stole another Indian pass to squash their last at-bat. And with the gun sounding soon thereafter, the scoreboard was all the was left to tell the story.

Except for this: Game to ‘Skins!

So with “number one” of the 2009 season under their belt, and in the “W” column too, the Tribe can now catch its breath and take stock of the plusses and minuses of tonight’s effort over the next week as they prepare for the Hatters of Hatboro-Horsham. Meanwhile, for all of us fans, it was a terrific kickoff to the year at Harry Franks Memorial Stadium and even though there were a few new names this evening, we’re betting they’ll be very familiar soon enough.

Game Captains: Kevin Magee, Isaac Bailey, Bryan Dean and Stephen Stemme.

See you at the game.

Souderton Game Pictures

Photos by Jesse Garber

Souderton Game Video

Videos by Matthew Bartolacci

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