Bethlehem Catholic football beats ACCHS

Bethlehem Catholic honored its unbeaten 1974 football team on Saturday night with a pregame ceremony.

But perhaps the current Golden Hawks squad found the most appropriate to salute the special team from 50 years ago.

The 1974 team went 11-0 and was known for its defense. Those Golden Hawks 38 points all season and had six shutouts, including a 26-0 blanking of rival Allentown Central Catholic.

The 2024 Becahi team did the '74 team one point better with an impressive 27-0 win over the Vikings at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium in the latest edition of the so-called Holy War between the schools.

Sophomore Jeziah Gregory ran for 144 yards on 16 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns and Cayden Vassa and Justin Martinez each found the end zone once as Becahi bounced back from a disappointing 28-7 loss to Easton in its previous game with its best performance of the season.

The Golden Hawks' domination was reminiscent of the team's 29-0 victory over ACCHS in the District 11 4A title game last November.

But second-year coach Tyler Ward said the performance was inspired by what happened at Easton a week earlier.

"Honestly, it all comes down to what we did Tuesday at practice," Ward said. "We almost went back to a full camp-style practice. We were getting after it physically, we were hard-nosed, we were hitting. We decided we were going to do everything we could to get our swagger back and our physicality back because we felt Easton pushed us around a little bit. Credit to Easton for that. They may have changed our season by letting our guys know they need to wake up a little bit physically."

The Golden Hawks controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. While the offense ran for 252 yards, the defense gave up just 64 yards rushing.

Becahi made a statement on its second possession, going 62 yards on eight plays, and overcoming a holding penalty along the way, for its first score. Gregory capped the drive with an 18-yard TD.

The Vikings, who fell to 2-3 with all three losses coming against Bethlehem schools, had a few sustained drives. One ended on downs at the Becahi 22. Another ended on a fumble recovered by junior Emile Ayache at the Hawks 40 and perhaps the signature sequence of the night was an ACCHS drive to start the third quarter that lasted more than six minutes but ended in a goal-line stand at the Becahi 2.

Central Catholic had a first-and-goal at the Hawks 6 and ended up running six plays, including one that was resulted in pass interference that moved the ball to the 3. But the Vikings couldn't get in.

"We went back to the drawing board this week," Ayache said. "We were watching film like crazy and we put in three new stunts and blitzes just to prepare for them. It showed. We did really well. We just wanted to handle them up front. They have some good players but we handled them."

Becahi's offense handled the rest of the game, taking over at the ACCHS 2. The Golden Hawks went 98 yards for their second touchdown and got one of its most memorable plays of the year when Cayden Vassa recovered from a bad snap that he didn't see coming. He caught the ball off a perfect bounce from the artificial turf and then spun around and past several ACCHS defenders for a 23-yard score that made it a two-score game with 40 seconds left in the third quarter.

The Golden Hawks tacked on two more fourth-quarter scores with Justin Martinez and Gregory getting into the end zone. Becahi's final touchdown came in the final minute.

"It was a great team win," Ward said. "On offense, the best thing about it was that it wasn't just one guy. Both running backs had good games, Cayden some big plays with his feet and even Axel [Burkhart] had some good runs. The more guys we can get involved, the better. I'm sure our receivers are a little upset because they didn't get too much work. But you have to take what a team is going to give you and they were sitting back in two-high [safeties] coverage and we said we're going to run the football."

Becahi was 5-0 at the mid-point of the 2023 regular season, but then went 0-5 over the second half.

Ward feels confident this team will finish strong. Becahi plays at Pocono Mountain East Friday night and then will play its last four games against Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Northampton Division teams.

All six EPC Northampton teams have winning records, including the league's only remaining unbeatens — Liberty and Freedom. The Northampton Division flexed its collective muscle by going 5-1 against the Lehigh County Division over the weekend with only Parkland's victory over Nazareth preventing a Northampton County shutout.

So, it's no wonder why Ward feels there's a lot of work to do.

"We're a young team and we're going to keep growing and getting better," he said. "We need to use this as a springboard and learn from those losses. We need to keep building on the things we do really well. If our team can be a good Sunday through Thursday and keep getting better throughout the weekend, then Friday and Saturday nights are going to be good for us."