TURNER — Greely rang up 226 yards on the ground, 150 from Joey Casella, and visiting Greely out-muscled Leavitt 38-20 in a Class B South football game at Libby Field on Friday night.
Bruising fullback Tim Coyle received the first two carries of the game for the Rangers (4-2), but Casella took all three on Greely’s second drive, finishing it off with a 6-yard run for an early 8-0 lead.
Casella finished the game off with touchdown runs of 9 and 49 yards in the fourth quarter.
“I’d like to have like 12 more of him,” Greely coach David Higgins said. “Joey’s done a great job.”
The Rangers defense helped out the offense early. Nolan Anderson picked off a Tim Albert pass as the latter was getting sacked on the Hornets’ (1-5) second drive. That gave Greely the ball at the Leavitt 36-yard line, and Anderson finished off a three-play drive with a 20-yard pass from Nick Gauvin. Casella ran in the two-point conversion for a 16-0 lead.
Leavitt got on the board on its first drive of the second quarter. Albert found Camden Jordan for a 9-yard touchdown pass, but couldn’t complete the two-point conversion pass.
Turnovers then took over. Bruce Hudson picked off Gauvin to spoil a good Greely drive. Shane DeWolfe countered by intercepting Albert five plays later, but Jordan immediately picked off Gauvin. Hunter Sirois then fumbled the ball back to the Rangers.
Gauvin then held onto the ball, running for 13 yards, throwing an incomplete pass toward Casella, then connecting with DeWolfe for a 47-yard touchdown pass.
Greely took that 22-6 lead into the half. It still stood at the end of the third quarter, with both teams punting twice in the period.
“At least defensively in the third quarter, I thought we came out and played a good quarter.” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. “We just couldn’t really get a lot of momentum going on offense, with the turnovers and the penalties.”
Casella ran in from nine yards out three plays into the fourth to all but put the game away. Sirois finished off Leavitt’s ensuing drive with a 3-yard score, but Casella countered with his 49-yard touchdown scamper.
Albert completed the scoring with a 25-yard pass to Drake Goupil, then hit Jordan for the two-point conversion. Albert was 11 of 22 passing for 146 yards.
“He’s awful tough in the pocket,” Hathaway said. “He stands in there, and he threw a couple great balls tonight and didn’t see them completed because he took a hit. He’s coming around. I actually thought he ran the ball as well tonight as he’s run it all year. So that was a plus.”
Albert finished with only 12 yards rushing, but lost 18 yards combined on two sacks.
Both came from Paul Buchanan, who was a terror for Greely. Besides the two QB takedowns, the 6-foot-4 senior also knocked down multiple passes at the line and stopped Leavitt on a two-point conversion run.
“He’s huge for us,” Higgins said. “He leads by example. He’s always working his backside off all the time, and the kids look up to him. Whenever we need a big play, he makes it.”
“He’s a good football player. A really good football player,” Hathaway said. “He was awful tough in the face of the quarterback in the pass game. You got him on one side and (Coyle) on the other side, that makes it awful tough to do stuff on the edge.”
Leavitt was flagged for nine accepted penalties, adding up to 90 yards and a couple negated big plays.
“I don’t know, maybe we got to be nicer to the officials,” Hathaway said. “We’re fighting the same battle every week. We got a lot of growing to do, I guess is the best way to put it. So we’re just going to keep working at it.”
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
