Trio leading Pennsville's high-octane offense

Dylan Cummings played quarterback for Pennsville's midget football program.

"We ran a tight wing-T," Cummings said. "We maybe threw the ball three times a game."

Ryan Hawthorne and Colton Newsome played in the same program, but they were a couple years ahead of Cummings.

"I think we threw one pass a game," Newsome said.

Things are different at Pennsville High School.

The Eagles play football the way Paul Westhead's old Loyola Marymount teams used to play basketball.

It's run-and-gun on double espresso, a hurry-up, high-octane offense that has been slowed more by dawdling chain gangs and moseying officials than by opposing defenses.

"We want to go as soon as the referee sets the ball," Pennsville coach Ryan Wood said. "We go a lot faster in practice because we don't have to wait for the referees."

Cummings is a baby-faced sophomore. He's 5-foot-9, maybe 150 pounds. His coach says he "looks like he's 10 years old."

Cummings also is tops in South Jersey in passing yards with 1,871, already a school record. He's second in South Jersey in touchdown passes with 21.

"He gets the ball out on time and to the right people," Wood said. "That's what quarterbacking is."

Cummings' two favorite targets are seniors who have been starters in Wood's unorthodox system for three seasons.

The 6-1, 190-pound Hawthorne, the Eagles' most physical offensive player, has 36 receptions for 693 yards (19.2-yard average) and eight touchdowns. He also has run for eight touchdowns.

The 5-10, 160-pound Newsome is the team's fastest player. Wood said Newsome has been timed in the 40-yard dash in faster than 4.5 seconds.

"He's pure speed," Wood said. "I know he's one of the fastest football players in South Jersey, but people don't believe it."

Newsome has 32 receptions for 650 yards (20.3 average) and 10 touchdowns.

"This is more fun than any offense I've ever been in," Hawthorne said.

The Eagles are coming off their most impressive game of the season. They rallied from a 20-7 deficit to beat Glassboro, the defending South Jersey Group 1 champion, by a 55-35 score Friday night.

Cummings threw for 444 yards and four touchdowns. Newsome had 172 receiving yards and a touchdown. Hawthorne scored five touchdowns.

"It was like a tennis match, going back and forth," Hawthorne said of the game. "That's what we want because we don't feel like teams can stay with us."

Pennsville plays offense like nobody else. The Eagles aren't just a no-huddle, spread attack. They are a hurry-up, no-huddle, spread attack that seeks to create the fastest possible tempo by racing to the line to get off another snap after every play.

Playing at this pace, the Eagles are 23-5 in Wood's three seasons. They are 7-0 this season. They will clinch the No. 1 seed in the South Jersey Group 1 tournament with a victory over 1-6 Gloucester Catholic on Friday night.

"People still doubt us because we aren't this big, strong team," Hawthorne said. "They watch us and they think they're going to like to play defense against us because they think they're going to get all these interceptions and make big plays.

"But then they get in the game and then realize they can't keep up with us."