After cruising through its first three games, Upper Perkiomen's football team received a wake-up call, especially on defense, in a 36-14 defeat at the hands of Kennett High School last Friday night. The Blue Demons' 22-point third quarter outburst turned the game into a rout. 

Parker Munio tackles a Kennett running back during Upper Perkiomen's 36-14 loss last week.

            Kennett (3-1) broke the game open with two touchdowns within eight seconds of each other less than two minutes into the third stanza to lengthen a 14-7 halftime lead. The first one came on a 12-yard Garrett McCracken to JoJo Carabajal pass two plays after Carabajal's 52-yard reception.

            After the ensuing kickoff, on the Indians' first offensive play of the half, Matt Reidenberg picked up a Zach Adam fumble and sprinted 29 yards to the end zone. Following a penalty on the PAT attempt, the Blue Demons utilized a two-point conversion, where Cracken (9-for-16 for 171 yards) hit a wide-open Carabajal to make the score 29-7.

            Before the quarter ended, Kennett mounted a five-and-a-half-minute drive that ended with another touchdown pass from McCracken to Carabajal, this one an eight yarder. The sequence deflated the visiting Indians, who only managed an Adam score on a one-yard plunge with 8:43 left in the game.

            "I think it was more of a gut check than I think we thought we were going to get in the second half," said Upper Perkiomen head coach Dan Heinrichs, "and we just didn't respond after that fumble. We didn't want to come out and go until the clock hit zero tonight, unfortunately."

            Kennett opened the evening's scoring with a 99-yard drive after Upper Perk's Grayson Sabo's 55-yard punt pinned the Blue Demons near their own goal line. The big plays in the drive were screen passes of 30 and 40 yards. The latter resulted in a Reidenberg (19 carries, 131 yards) touchdown.

            "The screen game definitely killed us," Heinrichs said. "That was a huge part of their first-half movement."

            The Indians (3-1) responded with a nine-play, 73-yard drive to tie the game at seven on the first play of the second quarter on a Sabo two-yard run into the end zone. Brody Lash added the extra point. Sabo (11-for-16 passing for 149 yards) completed two 11-yard passes to Aaron Maiden and a 19-yard strike to Nate Schramm to keep the drive moving.

            After an exchange of punts, Kennett held the ball for 13 plays and nearly seven minutes, culminating with a catch by Hunter Taylor in the end zone on a pass from the lefthanded McCracken. The Tribe's Skyler Jones had tight coverage on the play but Taylor made a great diving catch to give the Blue Demons the lead for good.

            "I think defensively, this was the worst game we've played, and we have a lot to clean up," Heinrichs said. "It was really just a bunch of little things that added up to a big thing."

            Despite absorbing its first loss of the season, the Tribe remains in good shape in the District One Class 5A rankings. Both teams entered the game in the top ten.

            This week, the coaching staff's attention focused on the "gauntlet" of Pioneer Athletic Conference games that begins at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Phoenixville.

            "I just told the guys, man, there's no drill for attitude and competitiveness and wanting to win," the coach said. "So we've got to get that back in our minds, and we've got to get back to work and fix the stuff that we didn't do well [against Kennett], which really comes down to tackling, execution and assignment."