Bethlehem Catholic head football coach Kyle Haas reflected about what it would have been if he kept a journal about the season for his football team.

“It may have been a best seller and a horror film, too,” he noted. “Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong for us this year.”

The latest dilemma that faced the Golden Hawks was their cancellation of last week’s game against Easton after one of their players tested positive for COVID-19. Due to contact tracing, they were forced to shut down the program until Tuesday.

Until the shutdown, Haas believed his team had a good week of practice after their 41-3 loss to Emmaus the previous week that dropped them to 2-4 overall.

“I thought we had a good week of practice,” stressed Haas. “The kids were focused and worked hard. We are at the point where we have found different ways to lose.

“Kids have a tendency to go one of two ways at this point. They can recommit themselves to learn or they can mail in it. Most of our kids want to recommit themselves.

“They are anxious to get back to practice.”

Haas saw a positive with the extra days off.

“It was a silver lining for us,” he said. “We had some kids banged up, and we’ll be almost 100 percent healthy. We as coaches want to simplify things after we had too many breakdowns against Emmaus. Hopefully, they won’t make the same mistakes that they made in the past.

“Our biggest obstacle on defense is not allowing third-and-long, and on offense it is converting third-and-short and fourth-and one.”

The Golden Hawks begin their final three games at Parkland Friday night. The Trojans (6-1) defeated East Stroudsburg South, 43-24, last week, and the top seed in the district Class 6A bracket has won two straight.

Yet, Haas still sees his team in the district Class 4A hunt. The Golden Hawks began the week seeded fifth in the four-team field.

“All of Parkland’s kids looked like cloned copies of big and fit kids,” said Haas. “They’ll be physical and we’ll have to be the same and play hard from beginning to the end. We have to keep battling. I don’t know if they realize that if we are down a couple scores, we can still pull things out if we stay focused.

“We still believe we can be in the district hunt. If we play well, we can compete with anyone.”

Becahi senior quarterback Jared Richardson is confident his team can still find some solace at the end of the season.

“I see things now how we started the season,” he said. “Every game can be winnable, n matter what our record is. We just need to be more consistent and fine tune the little things.”

PREDICTION: The Trojans are peaking at the right time. Sophomore quarterback Luke Spang has steadily improved as a replacement for injured senior starter Ty Tremba. Dahlir Adams has been the primary ball carrier, and the Trojans’ defense has been stingy all year. Ironically, Haas coached Spang’s father in his first year coaching at Allentown Central Catholic. Richardson has thrown for 1,052 yards with six touchdowns, and he has rushed for a team-leading 282 yards with five touchdowns. This will be a tough one for the Golden Hawks. They will need to hit on all cylinders and can’t afford a slow start. Like to think they will be there, but it won’t be enough...sorry, coach Haas...you’ll owe me a cheesesteak from Carl’s...PARKLAND, 35-21.