Senior Noah Borluca wears No. 90 for the Easton football team.
That number took on an extra meaning after Borluca’s 36-yard field goal with 3:46 left provided the winning points as the Red Rovers improved to 9-0 with a hard-fought 17-14 win over Freedom on Senior Night at Cottingham Stadium.
The victory for Easton, ranked No. 8 in the state by Pennlive.com, coupled with Northampton’s upset win over Nazareth gave Easton the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Northampton County division title for the second straight year.
But Easton may still have to beat Nazareth next Friday at Andy Leh Stadium in the regular season finale to secure the No. 1 seed for the upcoming District 11 6A tournament.
All that mattered to coach Easton coach Matt Senneca, whose team won by three points for the second straight week, is that his team keeps finding ways to win. The blowout wins from earlier in the season have been replaced by hard-hitting, physical, defensive struggles and his team was up to the task again.
“I mean in this division, in this whole conference, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing … you are going to get a helluva matchup every week,” Senneca said. “I just like I have the Liberty staff credit last week, you’ve got to give [Freedom] coach [Jason] Roeder a lot of credit. They had their kids ready and they came in ready to play. They gave us a great battle that could have gone either way.”
Freedom, playing a much better brand of football after starting the season 0-2 and 1-3, nearly pulled off its biggest win of the season when it threatened in the final minutes after the Borluca field goal. Quarterback Michael Stofanak hit Jaxson Pierson on a double move for a 52-yard completion to the Easton 8. But two running plays produced a loss of two yards, and a pass to the back of the end zone fell incomplete. Nathan Stannard came out for a 26-yard field
Stannard had made 34 PAT kicks, including two earlier in the game, and a field goal for 37 points this season. His attempt was high and far enough, but went wide right.
Instead of going to overtime, Easton took a knee and celebrated a win in its final home game in the regular season. The Red Rovers will be back for a home game when the playoffs begin on the last day October.
“That’s part of the game and he’ll bounce back,” Roeder said. “He works hard at it. You feel for him, but he’s a good kid and he’ll bounce back.”
Borluca could relate to his fellow kicker.
“I’ve been on the other side of endings like that and I know how it feels,” Borluca said. “It happens to the best of us. I told him to keep his head up because he had an awesome game. His PATs and his kickoffs were really good. He has improved a lot from last year. He just has to keep his head up.”
Borluca was just happy to come through for his team. With Easton’s lopsided wins like 36-3, 35-9, 42-7, and 62-0 earlier in the season, Borluca hasn’t faced the pressure of a game-winning kick before he came on after an Easton drive stalled at the Freedom 19. His kick didn’t get far off the ground, but it went through.
“All that matters was that it was good and I was able to come through for my team,” Borluca said. “Usually, we’ve been cruising and the offense has been rolling until these last two weeks. I am glad I, had my teammates back. It was a little stressful for me and I’ve got to do a lot better, but in the end, I got it done.”
Freedom fell to 5-4 and will close its regular season with its traditional rivalry game against Liberty at 1 p.m. next Saturday at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium
The series
Easton entered the game with a 40-16-2 all-time lead in the series, but Freedom had won eight of the last nine since 2018.
Did you know?
Ordway began the night with 4,010 career passing yards. Stofanak had his first caeer 200-yard game with 267 yards passing and three TDs against Northampton.
Scoring Summary
Freedom 0 – 7 – 0 -7 — 143:46 left
Easton 7 – 7 – 0 – 3 — 17
FIRST QUARTER
E: Christian Martinez 1 run (Noah Borluca kick), 4:15
SECOND QUARTER
F: Davyan Moore 12 pass from Michael Stofanak (Nathan Stannard kick), 1:07
E: Cole Ordway 21 run (Borluca kick), 0:20
FOURTH QUARTER
F: Abraham Pla 4 run (Stannard kick), 9:34
E: Noah Borluca 36 field goal, 3:46
