With the departure of star running back tandem Dorian Thomas and Will Day this offseason, there were questions about whether Easton would be able to run the ball with the same effectiveness following its Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship season.
With 853 rushing yards between them in the first three games, quarterback Cole Ordway and senior running back Chris Martinez put those concerns to bed ahead of a pivotal showdown with Bethlehem Catholic in Week 4.
“Chris is honestly amazing, to be honest,” senior offensive lineman Algee Macon said. “First time running behind the line…I’d be a little scared, me personally, but he has trust in us, and I appreciate him for that.”
That dominance continued on Saturday night at BASD Stadium with the stars in the backfield racking up 269 yards and three touchdowns on the night to lift the Red Rovers past Bethlehem Catholic 35-9 in a battle of unbeatens in the EPC.
Martinez was the workhorse once again with 29 carries for 178 yards and a touchdown while Ordway was more timely with his 15 carries for 91 yards and a pair of scores.
No one understood better than Martinez how big of shoes he had to fill, but no one is having more fun while doing it than him.
“I mean I had to fill in pretty big shoes from last year, obviously, so I asked them questions that they see on the field, and they try to help me to get better each week,” Martinez said. “It’s been fun.
“Coming up with the team…it really is fun because you see your team win and everything, but then when you’re a part of it, yeah, this is fun. This is way more fun.”
The Red Rovers left no doubt as to what their plan was for the Golden Hawks on the opening drive as Ordway and Martinez ran it 10 of the 11 plays, with one short screen pass to Andrew Biddle, with the star quarterback punching it in from seven yards out to give his team an early lead.
On the ensuing drive, after Becahi’s drive stalled in the red zone before settling for a field goal, Ordway didn’t even bother wasting time with any passes as he raced in for another score that capped an 11-play, 60-yard touchdown drive that featured eight carries by Martinez and another three for himself.
“Honestly, our coach always preaches how Easton football is smash mouth football where we run the ball down the field. On the first drive, if we’re running the ball and they can’t stop it, we’re going to keep going,” senior offensive lineman Elijah Grovesnor said. “It was like that last year. It’s starting to be like that this year. I hope we keep it going.”
Bethlehem Catholic went with a revolving door at quarterback with Cayden Vassa and Axel Burkart splitting most of the reps, but neither could find much of a rhythm against an Easton defense that respectably slowed down a potent offense outside of one brilliant play by Vassa.
The senior quarterback escaped pressure, stepped up in the pocket and outran a handful of Red Rover defenders on his way to a 42-yard touchdown run that cut Easton’s lead to 21-9 heading into halftime. He had the offense clicking out of the break as well, but self-inflicted penalties and a huge strip sack by Kurtis Crossman shifted the momentum in a big way.
Coach Matt Senneca and his staff decided to run the ball on all eight plays of the following drive, delivering a knockout punch on Martinez’s four-yard touchdown run with just under three minutes to go in the third quarter.
“We know we were ready since summer because our coach, he makes sure summer’s hard so the season’s easy. So, our main goal was to practice hard, play hard, and we’ll come in here and try to dominate,” Grovesnor said. “I feel like they got tired up front, and we just decided to dominate and run the ball because it didn’t look like they had conditioning how we have conditioning.”
The now 4-0 Rovers ran the ball on all but one play in the second half because of it with the one throw coming on a nine-yard touchdown from Ordway to Biddle to put the icing on a statement victory on the road.
“That really says a lot about our team,” Martinez said. “I feel like we have a lot of chemistry because this group has been with each other since we were in little leagues, and I feel like we can go very far with this team.”
Up next
Easton (4-0) heads from one big game to another as it prepares to host Emmaus (2-2) on Friday night at 7 p.m. at Cottingham Stadium.
Bethlehem Catholic (3-1) will head to J. Birney Crum Stadium next Saturday night at 7 p.m. for the latest edition of the Holy War against Allentown Central Catholic (2-2).
Derek Bast is a freelance writer who can be found on Twitter/X at @derek_bast. He can be reached by email at derekbast11@gmail.com.
EASTON 35, BECAHI 9
Easton: 7; 14; 7; 7 — 35
Becahi: 3; 6; 0; 0 — 9
ORDER OF SCORING
First quarter
E: Cole Ordway 7 run (Noah Borluca kick); 7:50
BC: Aaron Geiger 24 kick; 0:34
Second quarter
E: Ordway 3 run (Borluca kick); 8:15
E: Sean McPeek 25 pass from Ordway (Borluca kick); 3:20
BC: Cayden Vassa 42 run (Geiger kick failed); 1:18
Third quarter
E: Chris Martinez 4 run (Borluca kick); 2:49
Fourth quarter
E: Andrew Biddle 9 pass from Ordway (Borluca kick); 11:52
TEAM STATISTICS
E; BCFirst downs; 25; 14Rushes-yards; 48-280; 23-116
Passing yards; 69; 119Comp-Att-INTs; 7-9-1; 10-27-0
Punts; 0-0; 2-36.5Fumbles-lost; 0-0; 2-1Penalties-yards; 7-65; 11-72
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing: (E) Chris Martinez 29-178, 1 TD; Cole Ordway 15-91, 2 TDs; Akhir Brown 4-10; (BC) Cayden Vassa 12-95, TD; Isaiah Lebron 2-16; Axel Burkart 4-7; Carter Vassa 3-(-1); Zemi Rodriguez 2-(-1).
Passing: (E) Ordway 7-9-1, 69 yards, 2 TDs; (BC) Cay. Vassa 8-20-0, 109 yards; Burkart 2-7-0, 10 yards.
Receiving: (E) Andrew Biddle 6-44, TD; Sean McPeek 1-25, TD; (BC) Car. Vassa 5-58; Axel Burkart 3-40; Rodriguez 1-14; Tyre Lewis 1-7.
Becahi interceptions: Car. Vassa.
