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West Chester's Andrew Cohen, A Nightmare For PSAC QB's

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Division II West Chester Golden Rams have earned a berth in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championship Game. Champions of the East, they will host Slippery Rock for the crown on Saturday afternoon.
The Golden Rams got here by beating East Stroudsburg this past weekend, 41-27, while getting some help from Kutztown, who hammered Shippensburg.

In the win over East Stroudsburg, West Chester senior defensive lineman Andrew Cohen had another big game in an outstanding season with five tackles and a sack.

"It's very satisfying to get to the PSAC Championship (game), especially the way things started early in the year, starting off 0-2," Cohen tells KYW Newsradio. "But this team's very resilient, and we fought all the way back, all the way back to getting to the PSAC Championship and the way we fought and the way we dug down, as a team, and just as an overall group, really shows how much work and effort that we put into the season. And I'm just really glad that it paid off."

Listen to the entire interview with West Chester's Andrew Cohen

 

Cohen now has 10.5 sacks* for the season. In an incredible show of consistency, he has recorded at least one sack in all but one of West Chester's games here in 2015. This senior season performance has upped his career sack total to 30.5 and that is a program record. Cohen has been a force along the defensive front since he arrived on campus. He had 4.5 sacks as a freshman, 5 as a sophomore, collected 10.5 in 2014 and now the 10.5 this season. He talks about the key to being a great pass rusher.

"One, always have a high motor," Cohen says. "Never give up. Also, try to play games with the offensive linemen, try to keep them on their heels. Try to mix it up with speed rush, with some bull rush and also you just have to have good hands and everything. So really just try to keep the offensive linemen on their heels, make sure that they don't know what you're doing."

The career sack total for Cohen has him just 2.5 sacks away from tying the PSAC record of 33 held by former Clarion star Julian Howsare. This is all pretty heady stuff for the Council Rock South High School product, but Cohen says it is not the focus for him.

"I'll kind of reflect on it after it is all over," Cohen says. "But it's a great accomplishment and I take pride in sacking the quarterback. Hearing all these numbers, my teammates are telling me I'm 2.5 away, and it just really gets me excited because it shows all the hard work that I've put in off the field, just staying in shape and all that. So it really just shows how much work I've put in."

West Chester and Slippery Rock will kickoff at 12:10pm on Saturday.

*Editor's Note: Since this article was posted, a statistical change has added a sack to Cohen's total. He now has 11.5 sacks this season and 31.5 for his career, leaving him 1.5 sacks from the PSAC career record. Also, the added sack came in the one game this year where he had been sackless, so he now has at least one sack in every game this season. 

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