Falcons Named to NJCAA All American Team

The NJCAA has announced its All Americans for the recently completed 2010 football season. Two Lackawanna players were amongst those receiving that honor.

Named to the defensive First Team was linebacker, Josh Francis. A resident of Demascus Maryland, and graduate of Damsacus High, Francis started his playing career at Lackawanna in the Fall of 2009. That season he made 46 total tackles, 31 which were unassisted. He was the master of the big play as he recorded, 6 sacks costing the opponents 40 yards; he also made 7 tackles for losses on attempted rushes for negative 19 yards. During the 2010 campaign he was credited with 42 unassisted and 7 assisted tackles. He accumulated 12 tackles for losses of 72 yards, Seven (7) of those TFL's were sacks for minus 58 yards.

Earlier this year Francis was named a "Super Sophomore" by the Sporting News.

Francis has accepted an offer from West Virginia University to play for the Morgantown based school during the 2011 season.

Coach, Mark Duda was extremely pleased with the selection of Francis as an All American. Duda said "Josh deserves this honor; he was a key member of our defense who seemed to make the big play when we needed it." Duda added that "Francis should do well at West Virginia; he has a rare combination of strength and speed which makes him hard to block, especially when he is blitzing the corner."

Also recognized by the NJCAA was offensive lineman, Joe Danaker. A 6'2, 290, player out of Northwest High School in Germantown, Maryland, Danaker also joined the Falcons during the 2009 football campaign. In learning of Danaker's selection, Coach Duda remarked that, "It's a shame that there are no offensive statistics for offensive lineman. There is no statistics that I can quote on how will he performed for us the last two seasons. However on film our coaching staff could see week in week out, a lineman who did everything technically correct every moment he was on the field."Duda added, "He wasn't the biggest lineman in our conference, but I honestly believe he was the best. He did everything you wanted of him whether we were running the ball, or throwing". A second year player, Danaker is still undecided as to where he will be playing this coming autumn.