By: centraljersey.com
Jay Graber felt like his Allentown High School football team was well prepared for its season opener against Hopewell Valley last Saturday.
The end result proved the first-year head coach to be correct.
Behind a strong rushing performance by senior Ross Scheuerman and a strong effort from the Redbirds defense, Allentown opened the season with a 14-0 win over the Bulldogs.
"Our kids worked hard for the last six months to get ready for this game," said Graber, whose team will host Pemberton on Friday at 2:30 p.m. "I don’t think we expected a shutout, but the coaching staff expected our kids to play well. I thought overall, we played OK. We made some mistakes and there are things we can improve on.
"We made a lot of first week mistakes, which are things we can improve on and get better as we go along."
The offense was led by Scheuerman, who earned Delaware Valley 12th Man Touchdown Club Offensive Back of the Week honors by rushing for 218 yards on 38 carries and scoring a pair of touchdowns.
"He has worked hard and he has earned it," Graber said. "I thought his play showed just how hard he has worked. He played well and he it is good to see the hard work paying off for him."
Overall, the Redbirds offense was productive but there is still room to improve.
"I thought we played OK offensively," Graber said. "There are still things we need to improve on and we’ll work on those. There kids are still learning a lot and we will improve on those things."
As dominant as Scheuerman was on offense, Allentown was just as impressive on defense. The Redbirds held Hopewell without a first down until the fourth quarter, limiting the Bulldogs to under 100 yards in total offense.
"I thought our defense did a nice job," Graber said.
Next up is a Pemberton team that will be a new foe for Allentown in the newly created West Jersey Football League.
"We want to play the best we can and control the things we can control," Graber said. "It should be a good football game."

