PENNSYLVANIA PREPS Wilmington rumbles early for 32-8 victory over Mercer

The Greyhounds scored on their first two possessions and then broke the game open inIf the third period.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MERCER -- The Wilmington High football team settled the issue early Friday in their 32-8 victory over Mercer in their Mercer County Athletic Conference game.
The Greyhounds (2-4, 1-0) scored on their first two possessions for a 13-0 lead, then broke the game open with 19 unanswered points in the third period.
"I thought we came out sharp and played pretty good both offensively and defensively," Wilmington coach Terry Verrelli said. "We felt coming in that Mercer [1-5, 0-3] was a good football team with some good running backs, and their coach [Gary Krenzer] felt that his team was playing great defense.
"We expected a good ball game from them because in many of their past games, they did play teams tough on defense," Verrelli said. "They have fallen short in the end of most of those games, but it wasn't because they didn't play good ball."
Good mix in offense
Although the Greyhounds scored their first touchdowns on runs of 5 yards by Brandon Boron and 4 yards by Adam Ligo, they displayed a good mix of run and pass right from the opening kickoff.
Quarterback Tim Hughes completed his first five passes before finishing with 7-for-9 good for 107 yards and one score.
Mark McGinnis led the Greyhounds ground attack with 120 yards on seven carries as Wilmington added 176 yards rushing to the 107 through the airways.
"We feel we have to mix it up if we are going to be successful," Verrelli said. "We have some receivers who can catch the ball and Hughes did a nice job finding them tonight."
Following the game, Krenzer said it is difficult to play catch-up ball against a club such as Wilmington.
"Absolutely. That makes it all the more difficult to play them," said Krenzer of Wilmington's quick start. "They came out and knocked us off the ball and that allowed them to get on us in the first quarter.
"I am not so sure we were ready to play right away. It took us a while before we were able to find ourselves."
Big third period
The Greyhounds scored the 19 unanswered points in the third quarter.
McGinnis got into the scoring act with a pair of TDs on runs of 20 and 35 yards before Boron closed out the Wilmington scoring for the night with a 33-yard TD reception from Hughes.
The Mustangs scored midway through the final period on an 18-yard TD run by Luke Erdos.
For the game, Erdos matched McGinnis' total of 120 yards rushing.