Grace keeps Ridley on roll on ground, through air
RIDLEY TWP. — A year ago, the Ridley Green Raiders had a different quarterback under center in Jack Bakey. After dropping the first four games, Bakey helped right the ship by leading Ridley to a 6-1 mark to close out the season.
With Bakey graduated, Dave Wood needed to find a new signal caller for his option offense and he received that in the form of another Jack, which is Green Raiders senior Jack Grace.
Having stepped away from the football program two years ago to focus on his basketball career, Grace returned to the sideline for his senior season and it has paid dividends for the Green Raiders. Look no further than Friday night against Penncrest for proof.
Grace ran for two touchdowns among his 64 yards on the ground, and he also hit Gavin Kingsborough for a 68-yard scoring connection to propel Ridley to a 52-13 Central League victory over the Lions.
Grace found Kingsborough off a play-action fake down the middle of the field and the pass set up a one-yard scoring run by Dylan Staley. That gave Ridley (4-1, 3-1 Central League) a 14-7 lead with 4:36 left in the second quarter.
With Grace at the controls, Ridley has its offense in gear. Wood says he’s seeing similarities to what Bakey did for the team last year.
“You can see Jack is getting better every day,” Wood said of Grace. “He gets the reads and can throw the ball well. That’s what we had when we made our run in the second half of the year with Bakey.”
.@RHS_Raiders are in complete control of this one as Jack Grace takes in his second rushing TD, this one from five yards out. Ridley leads 35-7 with 4:15 left in the 3Q. Gavin Kingsborough has 51 rushing yards on that drive to set up the TD #Delcofootball pic.twitter.com/fY8UnirE71
— Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33) September 21, 2019
The Green Raiders offense barely saw the field in the opening quarter. The Lions (2-3, 1-3) put together a 19-play drive that lasted 10:03 and was capped by a three-yard score by Jimmy Cage.
Ridley’s offense came out “cold,” as Grace put it, but the senior knew his offensive unit has shown big-play capability this season.
“It’s definitely hard when a team starts off with a 10½-minute drive,” Grace said. “We were over there, getting cold and it was hard. We came in and couldn’t get it rolling on our first drive but after that it only takes one play.”
After a short punt, Grace took a direct snap 36 yards for a touchdown to give Ridley a 28-7 advantage at the half. That score capped a 28-point quarter for the Green Raiders.
In the second half, the senior took a snap for a five-yard touchdown on a drive that saw Kingsborough get a 33-yard run as the Green Raiders expanded their edge to 35-7.
Penncrest didn’t help itself by fumbling the ball three times. The Lions were held to 224 total yards of offense, with 60 coming on touchdown run by Joseph Stanchek.
Head coach Ryan Smith didn’t think Ridley was doing anything that caught his team off guard, saying Penncrest simply couldn’t counter the opposition’s intensity.
“Really, what it came down to was we were put into some adverse situations,” Smith said. “It wasn’t about what they did schematically but more of us just deciding not to match their style of play.”
