Pechin throws for 298 yards, 5TD to pace explosive offense
By Drew Diehl, Correspondent, The Times
Unionville’s Alex Pechin threw for 298 yards and five TD, leading Unionvile to a 70-24 rout over Oxford, Friday night. The Indians likely earned a berth in the PIAA AAAA District One playoffs. Jim Gill photo.
EAST MARLBOROUGH — As a heavy fog rolled in midway through the third quarter, the Unionville offense continued rolling on their way to a dominant 70-24 win over Oxford.
After being held to only a touchdown in the first quarter, the Indians (8-2, 5-1 Ches Mont American) rattled off 63 points largely on the arm of junior quarterback, Alex Pechin. With a 21-7 victory over Great Valley the previous week that featured only six passes, the Indians handed the ball back to Pechin—who threw for 298 yards on nineteen attempts with five touchdowns and one interception—in hopes of challenging the stingy Oxford secondary.
Defensively, the Indians held Oxford to 270 yards of total offense, forced four interceptions, and relinquished only one offensive touchdown.
Pechin connected with six different receivers with two of his touchdowns going to running back Dom DiBiaggio on screen passes.
“It was amazing.” Pechin said afterwards. “The line played great, the receivers were open, and it was just a great way to end our season and go into playoffs.”
Unionville’s Brendan Boyle looks for running room as fog descends on the playing field. Jim Gill photo.
Taking a 7-0 lead into the second quarter, the Oxford (7-3, 3-3) offense drove its way inside the Unionville ten-yard line only to be forced into a 27-yard field goal after a third down sack by Indians’ defensive lineman Mark Caputo. On the following kickoff, the Hornets scored on a fumble recovery by Zach Deasey to go ahead 10-7. From there, Unionville took over possession and sustained an 80 yard drive that was capped by a three yard touchdown by running back Garrett Scargill—who ran for 167 yards and 2 scores on 20 carries.
Up 14-10, Oxford was forced to punt from their own 15-yard line after a three-and-out. Unionville took over at the Hornets’ 43-yard line, and marched down the field on the legs of Pechin and Scargill with the drive resulting in a 12-yard screen pass from Pechin to DiBiaggio for a touchdown.
After getting the ball back on their own 20-yard line, Herb was intercepted by cornerback Chris Koehler on a pass into the flat.
Unionville’s Dom DiBiaggio fights for yards against Oxford. Jim Gill photo.
On the very next play, with Unionville threatening inside Oxford’s 25-yard line, Pechin threw his lone interception of the night on a pass intended for tight end Dan McClaskey.
With the ball back on their own 20-yard line and down 20-10 on the scoreboard, the Hornets were unable to get anything going on the ground or through the air, and were once again forced to punt.
Pechin and company were not to be turned away. After a 48-yard pass from Pechin to Koehler, Scargill scampered in from the 12-yard line for his second touchdown of the game. An Oxford penalty and a two-point conversion put the Indians up 28-10, and from there, the Indians’ offense and defense never looked back.
Aside from a 70-yard touchdown pass from Oxford quarterback Ethan Herb to Mustafa Mahmud, the Indians’ defense gave up only five first downs after the first quarter.
“They were able to dictate the pace of the game.” Oxford Head Coach Mike Pietlock said after the game. “Their coaches had a game plan, and they executed in all facets of the game.”
Although Unionville outperformed Oxford offensively and defensively, the Hornets scored 14 of their 24 points on special teams—the fumble recovery for a touchdown by Deasey and a 98-yard kick return by Mahmud.
“We were consistently great on offense and defense.” Clark said afterward. “But we have some stuff to sure up on special teams.”
Playing for a spot in the PIAA District One AAAA playoffs, the Hornets will likely fall short after their loss to the Indians. At 7-3 on the season, Oxford has cemented their first winning season since 1997, and reclaimed stature as a tough team to beat in the Ches Mont American division.
With the win, the 8-2 Indians secured their spot in the 16-team District One playoff picture. Likely ending up as the thirteen or fourteen seed, Unionville could see Suburban One teams, Pennsbury (9-1) or Neshaminy (9-1), with the possibility of facing fellow Ches Mont team, Coatesville (9-1) following its loss to Downingtown West.
“[The playoffs] are a great opportunity.” Clark said. “The kids earned it. The teams are all good in the playoffs, and we look forward to playing our best football.”
Tonight marked Clark’s 100th career win as a head coach, and with a road playoff game looming, he hopes to lead a balanced offensive attack and stout defense deep into the PIAA playoffs.
Good point Football Fan… I’ll also point out that just in eastern PA there were at least 12 first string QBs that threw 5 or more TD passes in their games (and a couple that threw 7 for 7 TDs. I’m sure you could at least double that number in all of PA.
How’s Sonny feeling after that BEAT DOWN Friday night???
Our players are feeling pretty good actually. They had a great season, much better than the media predicted before the season. As usual, the coaches took a group of hard-working boys and made them into an awesome team, which they will remember for years to come…. Something it would appear you have never been a part of (i.e. a team), given your negative and hateful attitude in every single post you have posted on this website on every topic you desire. And by the way, they will all move on to other activities where they will be just as successful.
UCFSD will continue to excel in academics, athletics and the arts, while we are taxed and spend less per student than many of our peer districts that can’t compare… while you accuse, whine and complain for naught. Go away NeedHelpInUCFSD. Your arguments have become fodder for our happy hour discussions… so thanks, you give us something to laugh about!
SORRY sweetie, but I played BIG time college football. I LAUGH at many of you UCFSD parents, who think “little Johnny” will be a STAR & will get a FULL D-1 RIDE!!
Throwing up 70 points on ANY team is BUSH & that’s a FACT!!
See you next season & GO U!!
NeedHelpInUCFSD. OK. Need to stop you here, this is just trolling my readers. I’m sure you can find another playground to entertain yourself on.
Well gosh you’re obviously a big star … do your kids go to UCFSD schools or maybe have they transferred to Malvern (or some other private school)? So why are you wasting your time bashing posts on a local newspaper? No one said anything about any kid getting a D1 full ride but you. Get a life and stop trolling our posts. Surely you have better things to do. I personally will not be responding to your posts any more, we will just continue to laugh at happy hour 🙂
How short your memory is NeedHelpInUCFSD. Was it not just one week ago that Oxford crushed SunValley 56-7. I assume you posted a similar message about Coach Pietlock regarding him running up the score? The winning margin was 49 (vs Unionville’s 46 in this game) and Oxford had 800+ yards of offense and left the starters in the game well into the 4th quarter.
I DON’T pay the Oxford’s coach’s SALARY, do I…..
How would anyone know – you are hiding behind the NeedHelpInUCFSD moniker. Were you even at the game?
BUSH league!!!
Sorry the facts have you so upset….
the animosity between these schools goes back a long way. This game has always had big scores. But running up the score when you have young ball players in the game NO. I played for Oxford from 90-94 and there were some high scoring games and yes this was a high scoring game. But come on, when did this world become so “SOFT”. Oh wait is it bullying also that they scored 70 points NO. this is a game of hard “KNOX” things happen. Unionville played a great game and Oxford not so good. Play that game again and the margin of victory wouldn’t be that much. I am not taking anything away from Unionville or Oxford they both have had a great season. BUT, a team has to win and a team has to lose.
I have had 70 points scored on me a few times and yes it hurts a lot but you have to learn from it and not hide behind the bullying or running up the score thing.
When oxford begins the game talking smack IN THE COIN TOSS, the beatdown is warranted.
Did Sonny score the 70th point??? 😉
Great article by Drew! As for running up the score comment…Always a touchy subject. It is a hard and fast statement “on any given night…” either team can and will come out on top. Unionville had 9th graders playing on special teams from the beginning of the game. We have a bunch of 10th graders who played throughout the game. Unionville is never lucky enough to have a squad of 25 seniors who field the team for varsity. Subsequently, and you probably can not see this from the stands we are generally a small in size team. Must be the water. I don’t think it would be wise for the team to play the 8th graders on a night like that. The Oxford squad were more than capable. They had size, strength, speed, and make no mistake they wanted to win and when those big guys hit our guys they were not easing up nor were they supposed to. When they scored they celebrated and made no apologies for beating the special team guy who just might have been a 9th or 10th grader who wasn’t as big, fast or experienced but was assigned and expected to fill that position, and Oxford shouldn’t. Unionville had the secondary and then JV getting much needed reps. Make no mistake Oxford will learn and be much better next year. On any given night who knows maybe Unionville just plays really well in the fog and hurricanes.
All good points…and yes, Drew did a great job. Look for more of his work during the winter sports season. As for the score, it clearly was NOT intended to embarrass. I’ll note Rustin put up 60 points the same night. As Jim said, Pat Clark has time and time again shown that he’ll go to young players when the score gets out of hand. I think hat we saw was the combination of three things: an explosive Unionville offense, a tough night for Oxford (which has been great this year) and some strong play by the younger Indians…
Edited to correct dropped word.
70 points is RUNNING up the SCORE, Coach Clark!
BTW – Did anyone say 60 points was NOT running up the score?? NOT ME!
Oh just stop.
The score itself means nothing. There are times that 21 points could be running up the score and then games such as Friday night where in context of the game, especially once the junior varsity guys start scoring, it’s not. Based on the game accounts of the Rustin game, I don’t think there was a running up the score issue there, either.
I can think of a number of times when Clark’s teams have kneeled with the ball inside an opponent’s 5-yard line, rather than score an unneeded TD. Aside from being the best football coach in Unionville history, Pat Clark is one of the classier coaches I’ve watched in some 30-plus years of sportswriting. He’s fiercely competitive to be sure, but a gentleman.
So…at this point…either you’re trolling or your screen name is, sadly, entirely too accurate. Enough already.
RIGHT… 😉 5 TD passes by 1st string QB!
I will agree with all of Mr. Gill’s points. It was Senior Night, and Coach Clark could have kept the seniors in the game the whole time in recognition of their last home game (including my own son). But he didn’t, he let the younger kids in which was the right thing to do! There clearly was no intention of running up the score, they just played their hearts out! (and Mr. McGann I’m hoping your statement below was a misprint – about the whole embarrass thing 🙂
Running up the score Coach Clark?? Nice Work!
Nice work indians!!!!!! WE R U! U U U! i knew we could do this once again and once and for all. this is what dreams and champions are made of!!!!life is good in the HOUSE OF THE U! you are the U and we are the U and YOU canNOT stop!! the!! U!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!