One week ago, Whitehall staged one of the most remarkable comebacks in recent high school football history, erasing a 21-point halftime deficit to defeat Central Catholic 42-41 in overtime.

This week against Pleasant Valley, the Zephyrs, and star running back Saquon Barkley in particular, made sure no late game heroics were needed.Barkley set the tone with a 95-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage, and Whitehall never looked back en route to a 41-21 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference victory over the Bears."We need to start fast, and that was key tonight," said Whitehall coach Brian Gilbert. "It's something that we didn't do last week (against Central Catholic) and we needed to make sure that we didn't have any layover from last week's comeback heading into this game. Pleasant Valley's a very good football team, and we wanted to make sure that we got up on them fast."Though Pleasant Valley's Austyn Borre tied the game at 7-7 late in the first quarter with a three-yard score, The Zephyrs (3-0) were never seriously threatened the rest of the way, scoring 20 unanswered points in the second period to take a commanding 27-7 lead into halftime."I think that we got better tonight," Gilbert said. "I was curious to see where our team was at last week, and we found out that we can't sleep on anybody. We have to make sure that we're ready to play, and I think tonight we got better."We had a lot of penalties, but I thought we executed better. We threw the ball when we needed to and ran when we needed to, as well."Led by Barkley's 274 yards and three scores, Whitehall rolled up 369 yards on the ground against the Bears' (0-3) defense.Despite allowing over 500 yards and 18 first downs, Pleasant Valley had chances to keep the game close. But the Bears simply weren't abele to get the potent Whitehall offense off the field in critical situations."The bottom line is we have to get off the field on third down," Pleasant Valley coach Dave Pacchioni said of his defense. "That really hurt us tonight, and we've been working on those situations in practice."If you look at the course of the game, there were probably four of five third-and-longs that they converted, or they got close and went for it on fourth down and got it. If we stop them, it could have been different."Pleasant Valley kept the game close in the second half, alternating scores with the Zephyrs on Borre touchdowns in the third and fourth quarter.The junior racked up 190 yards rushing to go along with his three scores, a performance Pacchioni isn't so sure would have been possible at the beginning of the season."You see Austyn Borre getting all the yards, and he's a great back," the coach said. "He makes great cuts, reads the zone very well and makes plays on his own with his feet."But you have to credit the guys upfront because they're the ones that do it. Going back to the game against Easton, their execution didn't cut it. But now, they're finally starting to trust one another, they're communicating and they're finally starting to do the right things so he (Borre) can make plays like that."With a team that's starting to gel and a schedule that will now shift to opponents the Bears are more familiar with, Pacchioni knows the next few weeks of the season are critical."Our next seven weeks are our way to districts, and that's our goal," the coach said. "We want to be able to play a meaningful game in November, but we have to take it one step at a time."Next week we have Allen, and we're going to prepare just like we're playing a championship game. And that's how every game the rest of the way is going to be."