Lehigh Valley high school football: Liberty’s late field goal upends Allentown Central Catholic, 15-14

Liberty High’s sophomore kicker Christian Hackett missed a potential go-ahead 29-yard field goal attempt on the first play of the fourth quarter Thursday night. But he was told he was going to get another chance. And when it came he was ready.

“Being a kicker, the mental side of the game was huge and we had a bad snap on one kick tonight [an extra-point attempt] and then I knew what I did wrong on the field goal try,” Hackett said. “It can get in your head, but I went over to my teammates and they were all supportive. I went back and started kicking into the net on our sideline and was making sure everything was going straight.



Coach [Shawn Daignault] told me I was going to get another chance in this game.” That chance came about 11 minutes of football time later, although for Hackett it night have seemed like 11 hours later. “I was crazy nervous but I just tried to stay loose,” Hackett said “Coach Daignault] was on the line about doing it [attempting a field goal].

But [assistant] coach [Frankie] Lane said that I got this. He said I knew what I was doing. He said I was going to put it through and that’s what I went out there and did.

” Hackett’s second attempt came with a minute left and his team still trailing by two. He delivered a solid, 30-yard field goal to give his team a one-point lead with a minute left. But the back-and-forth game that served as an entertaining way to start the second weekend of the season wasn’t over.

ACCHS got a big kickoff return from Aiden Sorrentino to the Liberty 44. With 51 seconds left, the Vikings had plenty of time to get into the red zone, but four straight incompletions ensued and Liberty had one kneel down before running off the J. Birney Crum Stadium field with a 15-14 victory and a 2-0 start for the second straight season.

Last year, the Hurricanes also began 2-0 but didn’t win another game. The way Liberty battled ACCHS, a perennial area power, there’s little doubt this Liberty squad will not be stuck on two wins all season. “Because we were 2-0 last year, too, we need to keep a little perspective,” Daignault said.

“We still have a lot of work to do. We made a lot of mistakes tonight. It’s great we were still able to win even with all of those mistakes.

The kids showed a lot of resilience and there was no doubt on our sideline. I’m proud of where our culture has come. There was not a moment when we didn’t think we were going to make the play when the time came.

But we have to clean some things up because we still eight really good teams to play on our schedule.” The mistakes included four turnovers in the first half — two interceptions, a muffed punt and a fumble recovery. One of the turnovers was converted into a a 3-yard touchdown run by Central’s Nate Young to give the Vikings the lead with 8:11 left in the second quarter.

But Liberty answered with two TDs. Jake Pukszyn hauled in a 22-yard TD pass from Antonio Fontanez for the first score, but the Hurricanes still trailed after the PAT kick was blocked. Liberty’s defense got a three-and-out and the Hurricanes were able to take a 12-7 lead at halftime with a 72-yard drive capped by Gabe Green’s 9-yard TD run with 38 seconds left in the half.

Central then played a game of keep-away for much of the second half. The Vikings, coming off a season-opening win over Trinity, recovered a pooch kick on the second half kickoff and turned that into a go-ahead drive. They took over at Liberty’s 36 and on fourth-and-2 sophomore quarterback Patrick Cahill found Nate Bringuez for a 28-yard touchdown pass and Tommy Roth’s PAT made it 14-12 with 91⁄2 minutes left in the third quarter.

The Hurricanes ran just 18 plays from scrimmage in the second half spread over three possessions. A Pukszyn interception gave Liberty the ball at its own 7 and the Hurricanes used the running of Adriaan DeLeon to drive all the way to Central 12. That’s where the drive and Hackett missed his 29-yard attempt on the first play of the fourth quarter.

Central then chewed up nearly nine minutes with a drive that went from its own 20 to the Liberty 33. The Vikings kept the ball on the ground and used almost every tick on the 40-second play clock between plays before snapping the ball. But the drive ended on an incompletion, giving the Hurricanes one last shot as they took over with 2:59 left.

“In hindsight, maybe we should have take a shot at field goal, and if it missed they would have gotten the ball at the 20 and not the 33 and we were playing great defense,” ACCHS coach Rob Melosky said. “So we took a shot on a pass play and it didn’t work out and they got the ball and kudos to them they drove it down the field. It was a great East Penn Conference game.

I told our kids that it was going to be a one or two-point game. We’ll watch the film. It’s never as good as you thought when you win and never as bad as you though when you lose.

” DeLeon, a junior who has become a big part of Liberty’s backfield rotation, gained 46 yards on the game-clinching drive. His last carry got the ball inside the ACCHS 15 and set up Hackett’s field goal. There was never a doubt as Hackett delivered his best kick of the night at the most important time.

“He sure showed some guts, didn’t he,” Daignault said. “I’ve got to admit we took that timeout and it was like ‘What are we going to do here?’ But he stepped up and I told him after he missed the first one that he was going to get another opportunity. He took advantage of it.

” Ironically, last year’s Central-Liberty game came down to a late kick and the Vikings’ Luke Myers kicked a 49-yard field goal on the final play to give Central a 23-20 win. It was Myers’ third field goal of the night. This time, the Hurricanes got in the last kick, but Liberty had several heroes.

One was defensive lineman Daunte Morrison who had a double-digit tackle total and several stops came in the backfield. “That kid’s got a lot of heart,” the Liberty coach said. “He’s got a motor.

He just had a club put on [Wednesday] because he has something going on with his right hand. So to see him play the way he did tonight, that’s who he is.” Much was made before the game of Fontanez’s return to Crum Stadium to play his former team.

He completed 9 of 16 for 103 yards and a TD and didn’t let two interceptions get to him. “When the miscues happen, he doesn’t let them rattle him,” Daignault said. “He’s been there and done that at this point.

He didn’t waver and was there when we needed him.” Liberty got its first win over Central since 2018 and its first win over a team not from Monroe or Pike County since beating Whitehall late in the 2019 season. The Canes gets an extra two days in between games since it hosts Stroudsburg a week from Saturday.

The Vikings will also play at BASD Stadium next weekend, visiting Freedom on Friday night. Liberty 0 – 12 – 0 – 3 — 15 ACCHS 0 – 7 – 7 – 0 — 14 SECOND QUARTER CC: Nate Young 3 run (Tommy Roth kick), 8:11 L: Jake Pukszyn 22 pass from Antonio Fontanez (kick failed), 5:49 L: Gabe Green 9 run (pass failed), 0:38 THIRD QUARTER CC: Nate Bringuez 28 pass from Patrick Cahill (Roth kick), 9:36 FOURTH QUARTER L: Christian Hackett 30 field goal, 1:00 RUSHING Liberty (22-149): Adriaan Deleon 9-97; Gabe Green 7-31, TD; Antonio Fontanez 4-12; Brayden McKinley 2-9. Allentown CCHS (46-157): Tate Shoemaker 20-84; Patrick Cahill 18-54; Grayson Schmell 4-12; Nate Young 2-4, TD; Manny Rosario 1-3; Maksim Godbolt 1-0.

PASSING Liberty: Fontanez 9-16-2, 103 yards, TD. Allentown CCHS: Cahill 4-11-1, 54 yards, TD. RECEIVING Liberty: Jake Pukszyn 4-54, TD; Jahsi Cole 2-17; Cole Daignault 2-10; Green 1-22.

Allentown CCHS: Nate Bringuez 3-35, TD; Aiden Sorrentino 1-19..