Riess Highlights Delran's Win Over Riverside

High School Football:
Riess Highlights Delran's Win Over Riverside
Friday, September 19, 2003

By Jerome Michaels
SJSports Special Correspondent

With just the second week of high school football upon us, the coaching staff is still finding ways of getting those all important victories early in the season. With the playbook still warm off the printer, players are fine tuning their ability to execute their plays well enough for an entire game. Both the Riverside Rams and the Bears from Delran won their first game and were looking to continue to keep that losing column clear of any losses. Delran’s early success running the ball gave their home crowd a lot to cheer about during the first half of this game. Anthony Riess made the most of his carries, especially his 65-yard touchdown run in the first quarter that highlighted Delran’s 20-6 victory over the Rams.

The first 2 weeks of the season has been hampered with the threat of heavy rain. Yes, this is football and no player would admit to the fact that they hate playing in those weather conditions. So when there is the threat of hurricane winds and heavy rain, most athletic directors were left with the decision of rescheduling their Friday night games due to the closure of school because of Hurricane Isabel. The Bears were one of the limited number of schools who would be able to host their game against Riverside.

Delran features the running attack of Riess and Kristian Lathem that established their ground game early against the Rams defense. Riess gave Delran the game’s first score when he broke outside and ran 65 yards for the touchdown. With the extra point, Delran was ahead 7-0. Lathem also was able to find some room to run between the tackles and set up their second score when Crawford plunged across the goal line from one yard out. Quarterback Pete Livengood connected with Riess for a 3-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter that put Delran up 20-0 right before the half. The Bears defense played an excellent game, but Riverside would get a last second 65-yard touchdown run by Lou Berger.

Photos by Mark Fletcher