Bennink, Unionville manhandles Sun Valley
ASTON — Unionville is showing every week that it is not to be trifled with and boy did the Longhorns show Sun Valley exactly that on Friday night.
Unionville improved to 4-0 overall and 3-0 in the league after a dominant 41-13 victory over the Vanguards.
“(Sun Valley) is much improved. When you watch them on film, they’re physical, the kids play hard, and we got a little bit of a wake-up call,” Unionville coach Pat Clark said. “We’re a pretty veteran team, so I think we settled down and were able to take care of business.”
The Vanguards got off to a rocking start when Todd Harper raced for a 61-yard rushing touchdown on the opening drive. But from that point on, Unionville took over.
Using a staunch running attack, the Longhorns battered the Vanguards defense. Ethan Bennink (87 yards) ran like a tank at Sun Valley and Unionville quarterback Matt McCloskey operated the offense with aplomb.
“Matt’s a great kid and he’s a second-year starter,” Clark said. “I think in high school football, a second-year starter makes all the difference in the world. He’s just competitive. Whatever the team needs, Matt does. I think our other guys follow suit.”
The senior quarterback connected with Nate Holt and Tucker Opdahl for scoring passes, while also adding his own rushing touchdown in the first half.
McCloskey finished the night with 63 rushing yards, 91 passing yards, and four total touchdowns. The signal-caller clearly did not let the early deficit affect his team.
“We know it’s a long game and we’ve been in games like this before. There were still four quarters of football left. We knew we were going to put up more than seven points and that we had to stay focused. Everybody did a great job. Defense, offense, everybody,” McCloskey said.
When asked what it was like to be at the controls of such a high-powered attack, McCloskey had a laugh.
“It’s easy! They do all of the work for me and make me look good,” McCloskey said. “It all starts with the o-line. They’ve been mauling people.”
Unionville also added second half touchdowns from McCloskey, Joe King and Brendan D’Amico in the second half for good measure.
Sun Valley, though, will not let this defeat keep it down for long. The Vanguards dropped to 2-2 overall (1-2 Ches-Mont American Division), but they know there are positives to be taken out of battling against a top-level opponent.
“I just told my guys that’s what we’re trying to become,” Vanguards coach Ernie Ellis said. “They’re a class organization. They didn’t do anything that we didn’t know they were going to do. I can tell they didn’t miss any weight room sessions. They literally picked us up, moved us aside, and ran us into the ground. That’s really the identity that we want. We just have to take our medicine tonight and hopefully we learn from it. We talked about the feeling we had last week (after beating Great Valley) and we want more of it. It’s going to start (Saturday morning) and we’ll be right back at it.”
