Great Valley cruises past Octorara
ATGLEN—Early in the second period, Great Valley was only up by a point over Octorara. The Braves were giving the Patriots all they could handle. But it seemed like the blocked extra point lit a fire underneath Great Valley, as the Patriots (5-3, 4-0) then put up five unanswered scores to roll past Octorara (2-6, 0-4) by a score of 41-6.
“You never want to see your team come out slow like we did,” said Patriots coach Dan Ellis. “As much as you talk, and as much as you try to get them ready to go, it just doesn’t happen, but that comes with coaching high school kids. But after the first seven minutes or so, I thought we settled in and started playing well, which speaks to the growth of this team and the maturity of the kids.”
Neither team got a whole lot of offense going early. The two teams traded punts before the Patriots finally put together a long, 82-yard drive, capped by a 1-yard plunge from Damian Carter just before the end of the period.
But the Braves answered right back with a drive of its own. Octorara cut the lead to one when Sye Hall ran it in from 8 yards out. The extra point was blocked by the Patriots to keep its lead.
Hall had a nice night for Octorara, rushing for 116 yards on 16 carries, including the touchdown.
“We did some nice things tonight,” said Braves’ coach Jedd King. “But we just can’t seem to find a way to string them together. Great Valley has a tough team, and you can’t win if you can’t find consistency.”
Great Valley put together a nicely balanced attack, with Alex Crouse (11 carries, 68 yards, TD) and Damian Carter (9 carries, 63 yards, TD) shouldering the load on the ground, and quarterback Jake Prevost hitting his receivers for big plays when they wanted to shake things up a bit.
Prevost finished the night with 133 yards and three touchdowns to three different receivers on 10 of 18 passing.
“Jake’s doing well for us,” said Ellis. “We wanted to throw the ball a bit because there are going to be times with our upcoming schedule where we’re going really need to convert a third down, or just throw the ball and hit a spot in a tight game.”
The Patriot quarterback connected with Josh Burgess (2 catches, 34 yards), Owen Banavitch (3-20) and Carter (1-42) for touchdowns.
“This was a great team effort, with everybody contributing,” said Prevost. It was great that we kept our composure after coming out flat. But we did what we needed to do to get it done.”
On the defensive side of the ball, the Patriots tightened up after the Braves score, and pitched a shutout the rest of the way, forcing a pair of fumbles and picking off a pass.
“We just talked as a defense on the sideline, and just woke up as a unit and shut them down,” said Crouse. “To be able to adjust the way we did and play shutdown defense was big for us, especially knowing the kinds of game we have coming up against Unionville and Rustin. We can’t repeat that slow start and have to play tough all night.”
Great Valley 41 Octorara 6
Great Valley 7 21 13 0 — 41
Octorara 6 0 0 0 — 6
First Quarter
GV–Carter 1-run, Parvess kick 7-0
Second Quarter
OCT — Hall 8-run, kick failed 7-6
GV– Burgess 22-pass from Prevost, Parvess kick 14-6
GV–Prevost 9 run, Parvess kick 21-6
GV–Banavitch 9-pass from Prevost, Parvess kick 28-6
Third Quarter
GV — Crouse 1-run, kick fail, 34-6
GV — Carter 42-pass from Prevost, Parvess kick 41-6
team statistics
GV OCT
First downs 15 9
Rushes-yards 33-227 27-161
Passing 11-19 1-5
Passing yards 137 0
Total yards 364 161
Punts 4-34.5 5-35
Fumbles-lost 1-0 2-2
Penalties-yards 4-35 8-72
Individual statistics
Rushing — GV Crouse 11-68 TD, Carter 9-63 TD, Prevost 7-38 TD, Montague 3-42, Koosha 3-14, Banavitch 1-2 OCT Hall 16-116 TD, Schempp 2-24, Unitis 3-10, Pawling 3-(-3), Garver 2-8, Kernan 1-6
Passing — GV Prevost 10-18, 132, 3TD, Carter 1-1, 5 OCT Pawling 1-5, 0, INT
Receiving — GV Banavitch 3-20 TD, Crouse 3-20, Burgess 2-34 TD, Carter 1-42 TD, Baugher 1-17, Neri 1-5 OCT Hall 1-0
Interceptions — GV Haefner
Sacks — Crouse, Brophy
