27070002
Hiram Bowman sits in the old St. John Neumann weight room reflecting on his standout season, when suddenly football coach Steve Smith shouts, "Yo H, come here real quick. I want to holler at you."
The senior running back joins his Neumann-Goretti teammates in the film room to find out what he did wrong in Friday’s 41-27 playoff loss to Archbishop Carroll.
"I went inside, and it was open on the outside," he said, referring to the play.
Scoring hasn’t been a problem for Bowman this season. He is the Saints top offensive threat with 66 points and has scored touchdowns four different ways – rushing, receiving, punt return and kick-off return.
"He is a speed guy," Smith said of Bowman. "He is very shifty and he is a warrior. He is probably one of the most versatile kids in school."
Ironically, Bowman didn’t start playing football until his junior year. As a sophomore, he watched his former St. John Neumann Pirates lose to Archbishop Wood, that year’s eventual Catholic League Blue champs. The athlete decided maybe he could help.
"I knew I was fast, so I decided to see what would happen," he said.
Eleven touchdowns later, there is no doubt Bowman is a major asset to the Saints roster.
"The most I expected to score was two or three touchdowns; I didn’t expect 11," he said.
Bowman said the highlight was catching a touchdown pass from quarterback Mark Hatty in last week’s playoff game.
"It was a playoff game, so I knew I had to step up," he said.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Neumann-Goretti to get past Carroll. The South Philly squad was trailing 34-14 in the second half, but managed to keep fighting and came within a touchdown, 34-27, with nine minutes remaining. Carroll added a late touchdown to pick-up the 41-27 victory.
"It was an uphill battle for the most part," Smith said. "We played them close and we came back after they jumped on us a little bit. [Carroll] is a real strong team and they’re bigger than us."
Heading into the game, Bowman was confident his team could pull off a victory. It didn’t matter his Saints had just four wins overall with two in league play. In the regular season meeting against Carroll, Bowman recalled how his team got within four points of tying the game before losing 38-22.
"We had a chance to win the first time we played them, so I thought we would have a chance to win this time around," he said. "It was a good game. We just made too many mistakes that killed us."
MAKING THE CATHOLIC League playoffs is a nice turnaround from last season, when the Saints won a total of two games and finished seventh out of eight teams in the Catholic League Blue standings. It was a transition year, going from the St. John Neumann Pirates to the consolidated Neumann-Goretti Saints. Smith, a former player and longtime assistant coach took over the program from Ed "Bubby" DiCamillo. Add the fact that several of the squad’s top athletes transferred to West Catholic and the Saints suddenly found themselves needing to fill a lot of holes.
This year’s squad does not care about the past. The players and coaches were focusing on the future and winning. They wore T-shirts with "Believe" stamped across the back.
"We put ‘Believe’ on the back of our shirts since we had such a bad year last year," Bowman said. "Everybody worked hard."
The results showed in the early going as the Saints opened the season with wins over North Catholic and Bartram. Bowman scored two touchdowns in both games.
But his best performance of the season came in a Nov. 12 win over Cardinal Dougherty when he scored three of his team’s four touchdowns. The win earned his Saints a spot in this year’s Catholic League Blue playoffs.
"It was a good game and there was a little extra motivation [because of the playoff implications]," he said.
Bowman hopes to continue playing football on the college level with the University of Delaware, Villanova and Rutgers being a few of the schools under consideration.
"I would love to play college football, either on the Division I or II level," Bowman said.
Before he heads off to college, the athlete has some unfinished business to take care of for his coach. The Neumann-Goretti players haven’t forgotten about last year’s 30-26 Thanksgiving Day loss to South Philly High. Prior to last season, the last time Neumann lost to Southern was Thanksgiving Day 1989. They hold a commanding 49-19-3 lead in the all-time series, which dates back to the 1934 Southeast Catholic days.
"We are really focused on that game," Bowman said. "We’ve got to get revenge on them from last year. It’s a big game for [Smith]. He doesn’t want to be known as the coach that lost to Southern twice."
If Bowman gets his hands on the ball, he won’t be.
