West Chester East

By Nate Heckenberger

nateheckenberger@gmail.com

@nheckenberger on Twitter

EAST GOSHEN -- West Chester East had finally felt some success, gotten some momentum.

The Vikings secured their first winning record last fall since 2006, including a win over Downingtown East. But as soon as they could feel good about a follow-up season, coach Dan Ellis left and eventually took the Great Valley position.

In comes Dave Gueriera to take over the reigns. With his spread, uptempo offense and 27 seniors on the team, things will be similar despite the coaching change.

“The senior leadership has been fantastic,” said Gueriera, who was offensive coordinator at Episcopal Academy the past two seasons. “Their leadership has been great and they police the team well and that’s the biggest thing.”

Much like Ellis’ offense, things will revolve around junior quarterback Jon Jon Roberts, who led the Ches-Mont in passing yards last fall with 2,582. Gueriera said he won’t come near Roberts’ 361 attempts as a sophomore. But Roberts will line up in the shotgun most of the time and will typically have multiple wideouts.

“Having Jon Jon, who’s like an assistant offensive coordinator, has made my job that much easier,” Gueriera said. “He’s a fantastic athlete and a great student. He’s an electric athlete and he processes information really fast. He’s the wildcard out there because he can break one from anywhere on the field.”

The differences will be how East attacks defenses. Gueriera’s passing game is much more vertical than Ellis’. Expect more handoffs as well, with Linder Divose, who moved here from Illinois, Steve Borum and Emmanuel Creekmur vying for carries. Divose is a put-together back who appears to mesh well with the three-back power run game package.

“We’ll run the ball more than last year,” Gueriera said. “We have four of our five lineman back, so we’ll look similar to last year. We’ll run some spread, some pistol and some under center, but the biggest difference will be our commitment to the run.”

Seniors Kevin Murphy, a University of Connecticut commit, and Kevin Logan will bookend the line at offensive tackles. They will also be big parts of the defense, as Gueriera does not employ the 11-on, 11-off theory.

“I like the best-11 philosophy,” Gueriera said. “If you take kids off, you don’t have the best 11 players on your offense or your best 11 on your defense. We’ll pay very close attention to snap counts. We don’t have any players that will play 100 percent of the game.”

Murphy is as disruptive as any defensive lineman in the league, and if the Vikings are to progress, the defense must catch up to the offense. East gave up more points (310) than it scored (302) last season, which is not a good sign since the Vikings had the sixth-highest scoring offense in the area last year.

“Kevin will be one of the better defensive tackles in Pennsylvania,” Gueriera said. “He’s very hard to block, at 270 pounds, and he has very quick feet.”

East will use three and four-man fronts, and a pair of wide receivers, Pat Downey and Nick Corialos, will be lining up at the outside linebacker spots. Evan Anderson is a playmaker in the secondary.

“I think the kids have completely bought in to the program message,” Gueriera said. “They want it badly and they’re tired of being a 2-4 team in the Ches-Mont.”