La Salle’s Jack Machita has special night in football win over North Penn

Jack Machita looked downfield, found nobody open, and made a break for it.

The La Salle quarterback was 15 yards into his longest run of the season and had picked up another first down. He could have escaped to the safety of the sideline.

Instead, Machita straight-armed a would-be North Penn tackler and powered his way for 10 more yards.

“Get your [bleep] out of bounds,” a La Salle assistant coach barked at Machita.

The senior just nodded and ran back to the huddle.

This wasn’t a game in which he was going to take the easy out way out.

“I’m just glad,” La Salle coach John Steinmetz said after the Explorers’ 42-6 victory, “that we got out of here with Jack in one piece.”

La Salle earned its second straight impressive victory on Friday night, building a 35-0 lead after three quarters against a quality Class 6A opponent before a large crowd in Crawford Stadium on North Penn’s campus in Lansdale.

Sophomore running back Samuel Brown led the way with five touchdowns, while the Explorers’ defense generated four takeaways and pitched a shutout through the first 42 minutes against a North Penn team that scored 55 in the season opener against Neshaminy.

But the game held special significance for Machita, a run-pass threat and cool-headed conductor of an offense that scored touchdowns on five of its first six possessions, save a run-out at the end of the first half.

“Jack played great,” said Brown, who ran for two touchdowns and scored three more on receptions.

Machita was 14-for-18 passing for 259 yards and three touchdowns. It would have been a sensational performance against any foe on any week of the season.

But this game carried extra meaning, as Machita was playing against the team and on the week in which his 2018 season ended with a broken right thumb.

“I was thinking about it before the game,” Machita said. “We were just trying to get revenge.

"This was my last game last year, and I was trying to get revenge, and it worked out very well.”

In 2018, Machita’s junior season ended abruptly in a Week 2 loss to North Penn.

“It was the last play of the game. We were down by a touchdown, and I had to throw it up, and it got picked off,” Machita said. “I went to tackle the kid who picked it off, and I dove, and [his thumb] landed on the ground.”

Machita underwent surgery to repair his thumb. He sat out the rest of the season as the Explorers finished with a 5-6 record.

“It was definitely frustrating, but at that point I couldn’t do anything about it,” Machita said. “I just had to wait and try to come back this year.

“It was tough, but there was nothing I could do about it. I just tried to be a better teammate.”

Machita said he was able to start throwing and lifting weights again by January. He has helped La Salle to a strong start, throwing a touchdown pass and rushing for 38 yards in a Week 1 win over Imhotep Charter and playing one of the best games of his career on a warm Friday night at North Penn.

Machita threw touchdown passes covering 67, nine and 30 yards, all to the dynamic Brown.

“We prepared very well for this game,” Machita said. “I knew what I was doing out there. The goal was to get the ball in our playmakers’ hands and let them make a play, and that’s what they did.

“Our goal is just to go 1-0 each week. Obviously, we’ve done that so far, but we got to keep going.”