Westburg, Garnet Valley defense shut down Springfield

CONCORD – Garnet Valley has steadily been getting better each week of this young season and Friday night’s 42-7 win over Springfield was yet another example of how much potential this Jaguars squad has.

Using a dominant rushing attack, Garnet Valley wore down the Cougars defense with 360 yards on 40 carries. It was just the type of performance that Jaguars coach Mike Ricci wanted to see from his team against a quality opponent.

“We’ve been working on improving our execution and I thought the first half tonight was the best half of football that we’ve played this so far this year,” said Ricci, whose team improved to 3-1. “Springfield is always tough, they’re scrappy, they’re well-coached, and we knew that if we were going to move the ball against them that we would have to execute and we did a very good job of that.”

It didn’t seem to matter who was toting the ball for the Jaguars, as each rusher was nearly unstoppable on the night. Running backs Jake Morin and Reece Malek both had first-half touchdowns, while quarterback Ryan Gallagher (83 yards rushing) ran for two. Gallagher also hit Kevin Craig with a scoring pass for good measure to give Garnet Valley a commanding 35-0 lead at halftime.

“We’re all really confident in our o-lineman and that’s where it all starts,” Gallagher said. “All of the backs run hard and it’s just about getting the ball to the playmakers and letting them make plays. We have a really good scout (team) that represented well this week and it showed tonight.”

Shane Reynolds added a second half scoring run to close out the impressive offensive effort for the Jaguars.

Defensively, Garnet Valley was nothing short of phenomenal. The Jaguars held the Cougars to 36 yards of total offense in the first half and 152 overall. Alex Westburg had two sacks, Brendan Henry had one, and Max Bruette and Evan Hrivnak split another one. Bryce Stansfield added an interception for good measure.

“Our scout team gives us a great look every week and they treat it like it’s a game because they want to get us ready,” said Westburg, who had a monster night. “We’ve become closer as a defense and I feel like we just play together. We’re all reliant on each other, we’re all accountable, and we just have to make sure that everyone does their job.”

The Jaguars were stifling for most of the night despite allowing Springfield to get on to the scoreboard with a touchdown pass from Matt Ellison to Alex Sciarinno in the second half. While the Cougars tried to keep Garnet Valley off balance with a mix of its passing attack and running game, the Jaguars were able to shut down just about everything the Cougars attempted.

“Our defensive line has played at really high level for the last several weeks,” Ricci said. “We rallied to the ball, we had a lot of kids make plays and hopefully we can keep improving.”

For Springfield, it is back to the drawing board, but coach Chris Britton knows his squad will learn from the loss.

“I think they always play with a lot of heart, but I think we made a lot of mistakes tonight both on the coaching end and the player end,” Britton said. “You can’t make mistakes against good teams like that.”