Goal Line

The Great Valley football team has the same seven defensive goals every game. Coach Hal Honig is pretty secretive about them, however. "I don't want to list them," Honig said after Great Valley's 12-0 win Friday night at Reading Central Catholic. "If I did, other teams will know what we're doing. " Whatever the goals, his defense obviously was successful Friday. The Patriots held the Cardinals to fewer than 100 yards of offense and recovered two fumbles. Honig said his team had achieved six of its seven defensive goals in blanking a team that is expected to contend for the Berks Intercounty League championship.

The reactions to Conestoga's stunning 21-14 overtime victory Friday over Upper Darby in couldn't have been more contrasting. For the winners, it was a defining moment for a revived program. For the losers, it erased any hopes for a Central League football championship or a trip to the District 1 playoffs. And the difference was about an inch. After Brendon Holland ran for a 10-yard touchdown on Conestoga's first overtime play, Upper Darby took over and moved only 3 yards in its first three plays.

Sean McNally knows defense. As a matter of fact, the Penn Charter linebacker has a nose for it. And anyone who knows football and witnessed the Penn Charter-Malvern Prep grudge match yesterday caught a swell scent of a game. In truly dramatic fashion, Penn Charter knocked off Malvern Prep, 23-19, yesterday, not allowing the Friars a whiff of the end zone with a game-ending goal-line stand. McNally, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound linebacker, led the charge as the Friars' comeback efforts were stuffed 3 yards shy of what would have been a game-winning touchdown.

Thanks in large part to Ray Traitz's quick thinking, Harry S Truman overcame a lackluster first half and blanked visiting Neshaminy, 21-0, in a Suburban One National football game Friday night. Late in the third quarter, Traitz broke a scoreless tie with a 1-yard touchdown run that had everyone, including the referees - for a while, at least - bewildered. On fourth and inches, Truman's Shawn Slivinski tried to cross the goal line on a quarterback sneak. Slivinski, however, was met - and stopped - at the line of scrimmage by a pack of defenders.

If Ray Gionta, St. James Class of 1971, allowed himself to fantasize about his first game as head football coach at his alma mater, the dream probably would bear little resemblance to reality: A 14-10 Bulldogs victory over Sun Valley on Friday night in a mistake-, injury- and penalty-filled game that had Gionta's feet squarely on the ground afterward. "It was ugly," Gionta said. "But it was a win. Everything that could go wrong did. We fumbled a punt, twice shanked a punt. Our kicking game was not good.

When Archbishop Kennedy coach Chris Bockrath reviews the game films of the Saints' 21-0 loss to nonleague rival Upper Moreland Friday at A.A. Garthwaite Field in Conshohocken, he will probably feel like a man getting sick on the same lunch, twice. The Saints, last year's Bicentennial Athletic League champions, unveiled a feckless offense and a porous defense against their Suburban One American Conference Freedom Division opponent during the first game of the year for both teams.

When Father Judge football coach Whitey Sullivan awoke Thanksgiving morning and saw snow on the ground, he had only one thought. "I looked out the window and wondered what time we would be playing Lincoln on Saturday," Sullivan said. But to Sullivan's surprise, the 15th meeting of the neighborhood rivals went on as scheduled. A crowd of about 3,000 braved the conditions, went to Lincoln's football field for the 10:30 a.m. kickoff - and watched more than a game. Along with a 7-0 Lincoln victory - the Railsplitters' first win over the Crusaders since 1983 - the day featured a mystery parachutist landing inside the stadium before the game and a snowball fight among students that spilled onto the field and grew into a makeshift, and sometimes-bitter, halftime show.

For three quarters on Saturday afternoon, Springfield's game at Chestnut Hill Academy was a football purist's dream. Play after play, the teams lined up, knocked heads, then huddled and did it all over again. No razzle-dazzle. No high-tech run-and-gun. Just smash-mouth, stop-me-if-you-can football. Then, all hell broke loose. Early in the fourth quarter, Springfield held a 12-0 lead. But in 1 minute and 51 seconds, the teams combined scored 19 points, and the Spartans emerged with a significant 24-7 victory.

When Archbishop Wood coach Bob Finley saw Cardinal Dougherty's Eldon Niblett line up in the backfield against his Vikings on Saturday at William Tennent High, his stomach must have churned. Niblett, whose running has given more than a few opposing coaches acid indigestion, had missed three straight games with a leg injury. Sitting out a fourth would have been fine with Finley. But bad shin and all, Niblett played all four quarters, accumulated a game- high 84 yards on 16 carries, scored 2 touchdowns on runs of 14 and 66 yards and led the Cards to a 26-10 victory over Wood.

There must be a goal-line package somewhere in Triton's offensive playbook. The Mustangs just didn't need it Friday night. Of course, with Josh Woods in the backfield, Triton always has first-and-goal. The Mustangs can on be their own 19-yard line - and Woods can go 81 for a touchdown. They can be on their own 36 - and Woods can go 64 for a touchdown. They can be on the opposing 38 - and Woods can go 38 for a touchdown. They can be on their own 20 - and Woods can go 80 more for another touchdown.

The Wells Fargo Center had all the electricity of a neighborhood funeral parlor for most of Tuesday's matchup against upstart Florida on Tuesday night. There were lots of empty red seats. Lots of sleepy play by the home team early in the game. Lots of missed Flyers chances on the power play. The Flyers, who two days earlier scored an epic overtime win with less than a second left, dropped a 2-1 decision to Florida before an announced sellout crowd. (Wink, wink.) The Flyers lost despite outshooting the Panthers, 36-13, and their season-best, five-game home winning streak came to an end. Florida goalie Scott Clemmensen made several saves in the closing seconds to hold off a Flyers flurry.

NEWARK, N.J. - With a sea of empty black and red seats in the (sometimes) church-quiet Prudential Center, it didn't seem like a key game between two bitter Eastern Conference rivals fighting for playoff positioning on Sunday night. But the New Jersey Devils didn't match their fan base's lethargy. Ilya Kovalchuk scored a goal and added two assists as the Devils defeated the listless Flyers, 4-1. The Flyers were playing their fifth game in eight nights - and it showed.

SUNRISE, Fla. - For the Flyers, there are lots of positives at the all-star break, which officially started with their hard-earned 3-2 shootout win over Florida on Tuesday night. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all three shots in the shootout at the BankAtlantic Center. Claude Giroux scored on a great deke for the only shootout goal for either team. Bobrovsky made 23 saves and improved to 11-4-1. At the break, the Flyers are just three points behind the first-place New York Rangers in the Atlantic Division.

The southern leg of the Group 4 triangle looks as strong and stable as ever this season. That's one conclusion to draw from Friday night's speeding bullet of a showdown between Cape-Atlantic League American Division powers Atlantic City and Millville. Before a large crowd on a cold, clear evening on Wheaton Field, host Millville clinched its first Cape American title since 1989 with a 27-19 victory in a wild game that wasn't decided until Atlantic City lost a fumble at Millville's 1-yard line with 31 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

Brian Fluck's cellphone was exploding with calls and texts on his way home from West Catholic High School's regular-season football finale against Lansdale Catholic on Monday night. All the activity wasn't to congratulate the Burrs coach on a 40-8 victory or ask him about the tearful and heartfelt goodbye ceremony for Jim Algeo, who stepped down as Lansdale's head coach after 44 years. The sudden hubbub was over the key contributions ex-West Catholic standout Curtis "Boonah" Brinkley was making for the San Diego Chargers in the NFL Monday Night Football game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Passing along some city high school football tidbits . . .  Germantown's Will Parks already owned a scholarship to Pittsburgh for his cornerbacking skills and major respect for his pass-catching prowess. Then, as the Bears on Friday claimed a 24-12 win over visiting Northeast, the defending Public AAAA champ, he may have set an off-the-wall city record as a rusher. Parks posted three touchdowns while ringing up the not-so-grand total of 7 yards (on five carries).

Andy Reid confirmed what Ronnie Brown told reporters a day earlier after the Eagles' 24-23 loss to the San Francisco 49ers: The play on which the running back fumbled at the goal line was a called run-pass option. "I probably should have done a different play right there," the Eagles coach said Monday at the NovaCare Complex. "And he did have a run-pass option. " The play, which came on a second-quarter third-and-goal situation about a foot short of the goal line, was botched essentially from the start.

There must be a goal-line package somewhere in Triton's offensive playbook. The Mustangs just didn't need it Friday night. Of course, with Josh Woods in the backfield, Triton always has first-and-goal. The Mustangs can on be their own 19-yard line - and Woods can go 81 for a touchdown. They can be on their own 36 - and Woods can go 64 for a touchdown. They can be on the opposing 38 - and Woods can go 38 for a touchdown. They can be on their own 20 - and Woods can go 80 more for another touchdown.

We spend some time with the quarterback of the Green Raiders: Who is your favorite music artist? Wiz Khalifa. What's your favorite TV show? Probably "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. " I like it, because it's about Philadelphia and I think the guys on there are funny. It just fits with me. You have family members who have turned professional, right? My cousin, Matt, played in the NFL. People always think he's my uncle. I guess it's because of the age difference, but he's my cousin.

Sheldon Brown knows what it's like for a defense to watch its offense fail to punch it in near the goal line. Last month in San Diego, the Eagles cornerback stood on the sideline as his offense failed one, two, three times to score from the 1-yard line. The Eagles settled for a field goal and eventually lost, 31-23. Yesterday against Atlanta, after the offense had squandered a few opportunities to pad a lead, the Falcons drove down to the Eagles' 1 just before the end of the first half.