Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Titans’ defense excelled in the PAC opener.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. — Homecoming is supposed to be a special time for a college. Saturday afternoon at Burry Stadium, the Westminster football team gave the alums a lot to cheer about as the Titans doubled up on neighboring Grove City with a 14-7 win.
“Our defense played solid football today and they made plays when they had to,” Titans coach Jeff Hand said. “It was a real nice win for us on homecoming and we are real proud of that.
“We are obviously happy with the victory and now we are going to take a look at the film for the positives and negatives of today’s game,” Hand said.
Although disappointed with his team’s fourth loss in five games, GCC coach Chris Smith had a lot of good things to say about his troops.
“We play hard and with a lot of heart,” Smith said. “We got another great effort and played hard enough to win, but at the same time, we make enough errors not to win. That has been the case for us in most of our losses this season.”
PAC opener
After Westminster (3-1, 1-0 Presidents’ Athletic Conference) saw its first possession end with a fumble, the Titans came back to take a 7-0 lead with a 68-yard drive that took eight plays.
Reserve running back Jacob Shaffer scored on a 1-yard run, but the big play in the drive was a 32-yard pass from quarterback Kevin Franz to Jason Discello.
However, not to let things get away from them, the Wolverines answered with their first possession of the second quarter on a 1-yard plunge by Matt Weil.
During the next 10 minutes, the defensive units took control of the game until the Titans set up shop on their 37.
Ten plays later, Franz hit Discello with a 6-yard scoring pass, and with his second conversion of the game, Fred Romeo (Poland) set what would turn out to be the final score with 30 seconds remaining until halftime.
Career high
Discello’s six catches matched his career best and his 77 receiving yards was a new career high.
Although there was no scoring in the second half, the Wolverines (1-4, 1-2) had numerous opportunities to put points on the board.
During the final 30 minutes, GCC ran 20 more plays (46 to 26) plays than the Titans, but they were unable to put any points on the board as the Titans defense bent but didn’t break.
“Our defense plays our hearts out every game and today was just another one of those days,” said Titans defensive end Andrew Robison (Wilmington). “We didn’t come through as well as we would have liked on some third down plays, but overall, we were able to stop them when it really mattered.”
As for not being able to finish the drives, Smith said it was just a matter of not coming up with the big play at the critical time.
Blocking breakdown
“We have to come up with the 20-yard play, the 33-yard play or whatever it takes,” he said. “In our last drive, we worked hard to get the first-and-10, but then we had a breakdown in blocking that resulted in a 7-yard loss because of a sack.”
If there was a workhorse of the game award, it would had to go to Titans running back Nick McKolosky, who rushed 26 times for 108 yards and caught three passes for 24 yards.
“Our [linemen] were getting a great push and making the correct blocks,” McKolosky said. “I have to give a lot of credit to our fullback Josh Kutzner because he made some great blocks and I was getting good reads from him.”
McKolosky said reaching 100 yards for the game was simply a bonus for his efforts.
“The first goal of the team is just to win the game,” he said. “As running backs, we have goals of averaging 4 yards every time we carry the ball and I think I got that. As long as I am over 4 yards a carry, I am happy.”