For most of this 2025 Easton football season, the offense filled the highlight reels with lots of touchdowns and lots of points.
The Red Rovers averaged 41.9 points per game in their first seven contests, all wins, and while the Easton defense allowed just 14.1 points per game – second second-fewest in the league – they were often overlooked.
But that wasn’t the case Friday night when Liberty came to Cottingham Stadium for a renewal of one of the Lehigh Valley’s and state’s oldest rivalries.
The Easton defense had to come up with big stops on two fourth-quarter drives by the Hurricanes to nail down a 23-20 victory that kept Easton one of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s two unbeaten teams with two games left before the start of the District 11 Class 6A tournament.
Algee Macon and Kurtis Crossman registered the last two sacks of Liberty quarterback Antonio Fontanez in the final minutes after the Hurricanes had gotten to their own 47 following a 19-yard run by Gabe Green. Three straight plays produced negative yardage and Easton was able to take over and go into victory formation for the final snaps with just over a minute left.
Who’s next
Easton stays at Cottingham Stadium to host Freedom next Friday before closing out the EPC regular season at Nazareth on Oct. 24. Liberty hosts Bethlehem Catholic on Friday night and then closes out the regular season on Oct. 25 against Freedom.
Liberty high School Grenadier Band performs Saturday, March 15, 2025, during the Celtic Cultural Alliance’s 13th annual Parade of Shamrocks in Bethlehem. The parade kicked off on Broad Street, then continued east to Main Street before ending under the Hill to Hill Bridge. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Band stand
The Liberty Grenadier Band is already excited about its trip to London, England in 2026, but has a pretty good gig coming up on Monday as they will march in the Navy & Marine Corps 250th anniversary in Philadelphia. The Grenadiers have the honor of leading the parade with coverage beginning at 11:30 a.m. on 6ABC.
The Easton band will also be traveling, as they will spend part of the holiday season in New Orleans as participants in the Sugar Bowl Parade.
Easton Wall of Fame
Before the game, the Easton Area School District inducted a bunch of new members into its Wall of Fame and some of them were not in Red Rovers uniforms too long ago.
Will Day, who starred for the Easton football team last year, was inducted. He ran for 1,107 yards and 21 touchdowns last year when he averaged 6.3 yards per carry. He is currently at East Stroudsburg University.
Cael DiSora, another 2025 graduate, shone in both lacrosse and football at Easton. He played receiver and defensive back in football and tallied more than 60 points for three straight seasons in lacrosse. He’s playing lacrosse at Lafayette.
East Stroudsburg North athletic director Chuck Dailey, seen in 2012, was the first head coach in Timberwolves football history. He coached for 17 seasons, from 2000-2016. He led the program to its first district tournament appearance in 2011. (Emily Robson / The Morning Call)
Chuck Dailey was another former football player honored. Dailey, a 1983 graduate, was an all-league running back and defensive back and was part of a league and district silver medalist 4×100 relay team that qualified for states in 1981. He was the first East Stroudsburg North football coach and led the Timberwolves for 17 years. He was selected to coach in the 2011 PFSCA East-West All-Star game and was inducted into the Lehigh Valley McDonald’s All-Star Classic Hall of Fame in 2013.
The rest of the honorees are Tom Bonstein (Class of 1965, basketball); L.J. Bennett (Class of 1992, basketball); Liz Edwards Duxbury (Class of 1986, softball); Jim Hutnik (Class of 1973, baseball, basketball, soccer); Aubre Krazer (Class of 2025, wrestling, field hockey); Shae Linegar (Class of 2025, wrestling); Nick Salamone (current junior, wrestling); Maggie Scalzo (Class of 2025, track and field) and Sean Wllson (Class of 2023, lacrosse and football). Wilson is a current Lafayette player and will be in action on Saturday against Bucknell at Fisher Stadium.
Scoring summary
Liberty 0 – 7 – 13 – 0 — 20
Easton 17 – 0 – 0 – 6 — 23
FIRST QUARTER
E: Cole Ordway 8 run (Noah Borluca kick), 9:30
E: Borluca 30 field goal, 1:39
E: Sean McPeek 70 interception return, 0:02
SECOND QUARTER
L; Antonio Fontanez 1 run (Christian Hackett kick), 3:47
THIRD QUARTER
L: Jake Pukszyn 40 pass from Fontanez (Hackett kick), 10:34
L: Christian Contakes 23 pass from Fontanez (kick blocked), 6:55
FOURTH QUARTER
E: Ordway 5 run (kick failed), 9:27
