The Eagles overwhelmed the Trojans 35-6.

By CALEB PARDICK

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

GROVE CITY, Pa. — Friday night’s game between Greenville and Grove City seemed to be a contest pitting two very evenly-matched squads against each other.

Both were 7-1 overall and 4-1 in Pennsylvania District 10 Region 3 AA play.

Both had posted two shutouts earlier in the year.

The only loss for both teams had come at the hands of conference power Wilmington, and by identical 37-0 margins, no less.

But under the lights at Grove City’s Forker Field, the Trojans and Eagles seemed to be on two different wavelengths.

Grove City jumped out to a 14-0 lead less than four minutes into the game and never looked back, cruising to a 35-6 win on senior night.

“I was surprised, because I expected this one to be a nail-biter, something like a 14-7 game,” Grove City coach Jeff Bell said. “If you look at our scores, how we played against our common opponents and total yardage for the season, almost all of those things were identical. Fortunately for us, we got some big breaks early on and took advantage of them.”

The Eagles’ first big break came when Justin Burk recovered a fumble in the end zone on a muffed punt after both teams went three-and-out on their first possession.

Greenville running back Taylor Malson then fumbled on the Trojans’ first play after the kickoff, and Grove City’s Caleb Broerman scooped the ball up and rumbled 40 yards to the Greenville 1-yard line. Quarterback Michael Burk, Justin’s younger brother, pushed his way to the end zone on the next play to give the Eagles their second score in less than 30 seconds.

Burk found the end zone again before the first quarter was over, scoring on a 2-yard run to extend the lead to 21-0.

But the junior quarterback wasn’t close to done.

Late in the second quarter, Burk found Dwayne Martin for an 84-yard strike to put the Eagles in front 28-0 after Martin got behind the Greenville secondary.

About a minute and a half later, Burk delivered the coup de grace, connecting with Austin Kimes on a 44-yard pass.

“When you’re surrounded by the athletes like I am, it’s not hard to look good,” Burk said. “It’s nice to have those kinds of weapons around me.”

The opening up of the passing game was the direct result of Greenville’s stacking the line of scrimmage in hopes of stopping running back Chris Clark. The 5-foot-9, 175-pound bruiser helped Grove City (8-1, 5-1) control the tempo of the game while pounding his way to 136 yards on 15 carries.

Burk said his team’s versatility on offense was the biggest problem for Greenville (7-2, 4-2).

“When teams know that you’re explosive on the ground, it opens up your playbook so much,” he said. “We keep running, running, running, and we know that eventually we’re going to break you, either on the ground or on a long pass like the two tonight.”

Bell said the combination of a strong running game and an aerial attack capable of producing big plays may be his team’s greatest strength heading into the playoffs.

“I wouldn’t want to play us, because I think what we have is a pretty hard offense to stop,” Bell said. “Teams want to take our running game away, but to be able to throw the ball like we can really makes it nice.”

While the Greenville offense struggled all night, Malson played well, rushing for 93 yards on 22 carries. The junior scored the Trojans’ lone touchdown with 2:23 to play on a 4-yard run.