Hubbard on top

The Eagles turned back Poland 23-13 for their first victory.
By JOHN BASSETTI
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
HUBBARD -- In place of injured Tony Giancola, Hubbard High was forced to spread its scoring around -- and it did, with Steve Cinicola, Cody Pitts, Edward Palestro and Joel Younkins.
That's what happens when your injured player is the tailback, safety, punter, punt returner and kick returner.
In the end, Hubbard beat Poland, 23-13.
"It's funny," Hubbard coach Jeff Bayuk said. "We always tell our kids that they're always one play away from moving up the depth chart. Cinicola started JVs last week. Then when Tony got hurt, Steve had to come in and play tailback and do the kicking."
In making his first varsity start at tailback, Cinicola, a junior, got the first points of the game on a 25-yard field goal and made a huge 44-yard run that set up Palestro's touchdown reception early in the third quarter.
Turning point
Although Hubbard was ahead at the time, 10-7, the Cinicola-Palestro combination, engineered by sophomore quarterback Marc Kanetsky, was the turning point because it gave the Eagles a 16-7 cushion.
"That's certainly not the way we wanted to start the third quarter," Poland's first-year coach Mark Brungard said. "Before halftime, we were up, 7-3, and driving and had the line of scrimmage controlled for a while. Then we put one on the ground [fumbled], Hubbard recovered and went down and scored. That was a big momentum thing. In the second half, we came out flat and went three-and-out and they went right down on us and scored. That was tough to overcome, it really was."
Kanetsky was 11-of-20 for 181 yards with Russell Hawkins, a 6-foot-3, 180-pound senior, making six catches for 93 yards.
Eagles' workhorse
Younkins, the 6-2, 210 junior fullback who sometimes plays tailback and also starts at linebacker, was Hubbard's workhorse with 115 yards on 14 carries.
Cinicola added 89 yards on 12 carries.
Pitts' TD was a 36-yard reception from Kanetsky that gave the Eagles -- following Cinicola's PAT -- their 10-7 lead.
A name Poland fans will hear a lot is Brandon Beachum. The 6-1, 200 sophomore tailback, had a game-high 130 yards on 27 carries. He scored a 3-yard touchdown run. The Bulldogs' other TD was scored by Ross Wetzel on a 5-yard pass play from Chris Lovell with Fred Romeo adding the extra point.
Both Hubbard and Poland coaches consider their teams young.
"We accomplished this without a big part of our team," Bayuk said of the absence of Giancola, a 1,700-yard rusher last year who was sidelined Friday with a deep thigh bruise. "Our kids rallied around each other and everybody tried to do their part and that was a real big growing part tonight. We were able to take that step without the kid that I consider to be our best player."
Bayuk was also complimentary of Kanetsky.
"Even though we lost last week, our sophomore quarterback made some really good progress and he made some very nice plays tonight under pressure. We're excited about what he can do with the ball and that kind of opens things up for us a little bit on offense."
Likewise, Brungard spoke about his team's situation.
Haven't learned how to win
"I felt like we competed with Hubbard but we just haven't learned how to win a game yet. It's just going to take time. The coaching staff has to get better -- we blew a couple of timeouts early because we didn't have the right people in the game. That type of stuff just shouldn't happen.
"We all make mistakes and we all have to get better. We have no breaks in our schedule. We've got Ursuline next week at home, though, and should be fun for our kids but, hopefully, we can turn it around."
bassetti@vindy.com