Major bragging rights were on the line Saturday afternoon as the Greece Athena Trojans hosted their cross-town rivals, the Greece Arcadia Titans. Highly competitive games like this one can either bring out the best or the worst in athletes. In this case, there was a little bit of both displayed on the field, as emotions were high during a 33-13 Trojan victory.
Trojans quarterback Frankie Carnevale was sacked on his first drop back. Following a long first down run by running back John Hampton, Trojans quarterback Frankie Carnevale was picked off by Titans defensive back Jay’von Hampton, who’s also the Titan’s starting quarterback. On the very next play from scrimmage, though, the Titans fumbled the ball and Athena’s Reno Colilli recovered at the 25 yard line. The Trojans then marched the rest of the field, converting on a 4th down play on their way to a touchdown by running back Trevond Jones, the first of his three touchdowns on the day.
“My offensive line was great, I had a good push up front so they’re basically the reason why I had three touchdowns today,” said Jones. “We were just on-point; we had positive energy on our sideline which boosted us up a lot.”
The first quarter ended with a score of 7-0, and Athena was set to receive a punt at the beginning of the second quarter. It was a very short punt that wide receiver Ricky Federico returned inside the opposing 5 yard line, and Jones would punch in his second touchdown run of the game on a 3-yard carry the following play. The extra point was no good, but the Trojans were up two scores.
The Titans were able to find a rather unorthodox way to get back into the game. On the kickoff following Athena’s second score, there was confusion between the return men as to who was going to field the kick. The ball bounced all the way to the 1 yard line before DaQuan Brown scooped the ball up, danced around some tacklers and turned up field, outrunning everyone to the end zone for Arcadia’s first score of the game.
With momentum in their favor, Titans head coach John Lockhart decided to try and get the ball back into the hands of his offense with an onsides kick. Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off as the Trojans were able to recover, and used the good field advantage to their favor. They drove the ball all the way to Arcadia’s 20 yard line and, on a third-and-six play, Carnavale sold a fake hand-off to his running back, kept the ball himself and rushed for a 20 yard score.
Major bragging rights were on the line Saturday afternoon as the Greece Athena Trojans hosted their cross-town rivals, the Greece Arcadia Titans. Highly competitive games like this one can either bring out the best or the worst in athletes. In this case, there was a little bit of both displayed on the field, as emotions were high during a 33-13 Trojan victory.
Trojans quarterback Frankie Carnevale was sacked on his first drop back. Following a long first down run by running back John Hampton, Trojans quarterback Frankie Carnevale was picked off by Titans defensive back Jay’von Hampton, who’s also the Titan’s starting quarterback. On the very next play from scrimmage, though, the Titans fumbled the ball and Athena’s Reno Colilli recovered at the 25 yard line. The Trojans then marched the rest of the field, converting on a 4th down play on their way to a touchdown by running back Trevond Jones, the first of his three touchdowns on the day.
“My offensive line was great, I had a good push up front so they’re basically the reason why I had three touchdowns today,” said Jones. “We were just on-point; we had positive energy on our sideline which boosted us up a lot.”
The first quarter ended with a score of 7-0, and Athena was set to receive a punt at the beginning of the second quarter. It was a very short punt that wide receiver Ricky Federico returned inside the opposing 5 yard line, and Jones would punch in his second touchdown run of the game on a 3-yard carry the following play. The extra point was no good, but the Trojans were up two scores.
The Titans were able to find a rather unorthodox way to get back into the game. On the kickoff following Athena’s second score, there was confusion between the return men as to who was going to field the kick. The ball bounced all the way to the 1 yard line before DaQuan Brown scooped the ball up, danced around some tacklers and turned up field, outrunning everyone to the end zone for Arcadia’s first score of the game.
With momentum in their favor, Titans head coach John Lockhart decided to try and get the ball back into the hands of his offense with an onsides kick. Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off as the Trojans were able to recover, and used the good field advantage to their favor. They drove the ball all the way to Arcadia’s 20 yard line and, on a third-and-six play, Carnavale sold a fake hand-off to his running back, kept the ball himself and rushed for a 20 yard score.
` The Titans continued to struggle on offense, as Hampton threw a pick on their next series. Their next couple series would result in punts, and the turnover bug would come back to bite Arcadia once again. The Titans fumbled the ball inside their own 20 yard line. Athena recovered, and capitalized on the next play with a 19-yard touchdown pass from Carnavale to Federico.
Titans head coach John Lockhart cited poor field position and turnovers as major reasons for the lopsided loss.
“We need to execute better on offense, we’re not executing, we’re not capitalizing on turnovers, and it just comes down to execution,” said Lockhart. “Field position, we were behind the whole first half, and they had great field position and we were backed up to our 10 or 20 in the first half.”
The half ended with a score of 26-7. Although the Titans offense would finally break through in the second half with a 46-yard touchdown pass to Brown, their overall performance was marred by inconsistencies and turnovers. The Trojans extended their lead to 33-13 following Jones’s final touchdown of the day, despite some mistakes of their own, including a botched field goal.
Emotions would finally boil over at the seven-minute mark of the fourth quarter, when a fight erupted during a punt. The majority of both teams spilled out onto the field, and several players were assessed penalties and banned from playing the rest of the game.
“It was a great battle, you know, Greece versus Greece, obviously it gets a little heated, and emotions run high,” Lockhart said. “When it’s all said and done, it’s football. It was a solid game of football. It’s unfortunate how things unfolded there but I thought it was a hard-fought, physical game by both teams.”
Besides the fight, Cerone was happy with the way the game went and praised the way his defense played.
“Anytime we play Greece schools it’s definitely important that we play well because we know that they’re going to come after us with all they have”, Cerone said. “I thought we played really well defensively. Offensively, we sputtered a little bit, we can play better on offense but overall I’m really proud of my kids. I thought they played hard from start to finish.”
