It was anyone’s ball game at halftime last Saturday afternoon when Downingtown West held a 13-7 lead at intermission over Freedom.

But then the wheels came off in the second half for the Patriots in their season opener, as the Whippets scored 34 unanswered points to cruise their way to a 47-7 victory at BASD Stadium.

In fact, West scored 47 unanswered after the Pates took a first quarter 7-0 lead off a 40-yard touchdown run by LaShawn Johnson.

A QB sneak by Cole Bricker tied the game with 10:45 left in the second quarter and a pair of Mason Sharp field goals gave the Whippets the halftime advantage, as the first half was mostly evenly played.

Then the game changed in the third quarter when Patriots’ quarterback Michael Stofanak had a pass go through the hands of his intended receiver and into the arms of Downingtown’s Branden Goode-Kimble, who returned the interception 32-yards for a pick six to give the Whippets a 20-7 lead less than two minutes into the second half.

It didn’t seem like it at the moment, but Freedom never recovered from that point on.

“Sadly, that looks like it was the turning point,” said Freedom head coach Jason Roeder. “Moving forward you can’t be that fragile. Just trying to figure out how it went from a 13-7 game at halftime, where I thought we were playing even with them to completely unravel. Momentum got away from us and the end was not good.”

The game remained at 20-7 heading into the fourth quarter where things just fell apart for the Pates, as Amari Cannon ran for three touchdown runs for the Whippets and Gavin Kobus picked up a fumble on a kickoff and returned it 12 yards for the final nail in the coffin.

The Pates had five turnovers on the afternoon and amassed 170 yards of total offense, as they now prep to take on defending District 11 6A champion Parkland this Friday night on the road.

“We have to learn from this and we will get better,” said Roeder. “This is our best evaluation tool and start by looking at the film and see who played too much and guys that didn’t play enough. You try to bank on your culture and there’s no magic button. We just have to get better.”