The Warriors (4-0, 1-0 NBC) beat the Aviators, who lost four of seven fumbles.

By ERIC HAMILTON

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT 

ALLIANCE — In preparing for Friday’s Northeastern Buckeye Conference opener against rival West Branch, Alliance coach Ron Kuceyeski made two major changes.

The first one — a new defensive scheme — worked pretty well, but the second helped cost his team a victory.

After watching his team struggle with snapping the ball last week against Canfield, Kuceyeski decided to make a change at the center position to see if things would get better. You can’t blame him for trying, but things may have gotten worse. 

Alliance fumbled the ball seven times against the Warriors, losing four, and had errant snaps on two punts and an extra point.

The tale

And although West Branch was only able to turn those miscues into one score, Alliance wasn’t able to overcome the mistakes and ultimately lost 14-12 at Mount Union Stadium.

“That gift-wrapped the game for them right there,” Kuceyeski said. “We had some bad snaps last week so we changed centers, but it didn’t help. You can’t play defense with your back against the wall all night and expect to win.

“I’m proud of how hard our defense played tonight when West Branch had such great field position. But we need to figure some things out offensively.”

West Branch (4-0, 1-0 NBC) began seven offensive possessions in Alliance territory, four of those in the first half. The Warriors converted the short field just once. 

“We knew yards would be hard to come by against their defense,” West Branch coach Bob Altenhof said. “They have 11 guys that can fly to the ball. They gave us a different look defensively than we expected and we had trouble adjusting.

“But the kids were resilient in the rain and earned every yard we got. Our defense contained their speed pretty well and didn’t give up too many big plays. Alliance has a tendency to put the ball on the ground and we were fortunate enough to grab four of those.”

Opening march

The Warriors began the game with an impressive 16-play scoring drive, covering 76 yards in 6 minutes.

Quarterback Steve McNeely was sharp throwing the ball, completing five of six attempts for 54 yards.

Corey Catania capped the march with a 1-yard scoring plunge to give West Branch an early 7-0 lead at the 5:48 mark of the opening quarter.

After failing to convert on three other drives that began across midfield, West Branch finally took advantage of prime field position in the second quarter.

The Warriors recovered an errant punt snap at the Alliance 20. Mike Morgan bolted the distance on the first play to extend the Warriors’ lead to 14-0 with 6:58 remaining in the second quarter.

Nick Holly got Alliance back into the contest quickly. He returned the kickoff 52 yards to the West Branch 43 — the Aviators’ first time in Warrior territory.

Alliance (2-2, 0-1 NBC) advanced to the West Branch 25, where they faced a third-and-7 situation. Kuceyeski reached into his bag of tricks and caught the defense by surprise. Quarterback Logan Nordquist pitched the ball to Holly in the backfield, who then found Jon Andrews in the end zone for a 25-yard touchdown.

Snap low

The point-after snap was low and Alliance did not convert the kick, but cut the deficit to 14-6 at intermission.

The failed kick proved key in the fourth quarter. After Alliance’s Dailen Cottle rambled 47 yards for the touchdown to get the Aviators within 14-12 at the 8:30 mark, Alliance went for a two-point conversion to tie.

On the run attempt, Alliance fumbled and West Branch maintained its narrow advantage.

“We talked about that at halftime – that we had to go for two if we scored again,” said Kuceyeski. “We really beat ourselves on special teams tonight.”

Alliance had one last hope, getting the ball at its own 10 with 54 seconds left, but no timeouts. Backup quarterback Jordan Merrell marched the Aviators all the way down to the West Branch 29 with just 8 seconds left.

But on second down, Alliance was called for intentional grounding and an incomplete pass on fourth down ended the potential game-winning drive.