Grand Island football dominates South
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Williamsville South's Andrew Esposito tries to find positive yardage among a sea of Grand Island defenders. Blocking on the play is South's Kellen Williams. South lost 28-0 to Grand Island at home last Friday. Photo by Joe Eberle

A good indicator of Williamsville South's offensive troubles against Grand Island last Friday came when the South cheerleaders chanted "First-and-Ten, Let's do it again!" for the first time with 9:09 left in the third quarter.

The South offense was nonexistent throughout its 28-0 shutout to the Vikings, the defending Section VI Class A champions. South ran 15 offensive first half plays for minus 15 yards and finished overall with unofficially minus two yards. They only managed two first downs, were sacked four times, and intercepted twice. Grand Island finished with 275 yards of total offense and no turnovers.

"We didn't appear very hungry tonight and I'll take that on me as far as preparation is concerned," said South head coach Ryan Gallo after the game. "We had a pretty solid week of practice. We just made too many mistakes. If you make too many mistakes against a good football team, then you don't give yourself a chance to win."

The Vikings built a 21-0 lead into halftime. Matt McKenna scored all three first half touchdowns, catching a 9-yard pass from junior Matt Klock with 26 seconds left in the first quarter, and slicing through the South defense for runs of 12- and 14-yards in the second quarter.

"The line was great," said McKenna, who finished with 12 carries for 78 yards and two receptions for 24 yards. "The holes were huge that I ran through. I had to make a few cuts but that was about it."

McKenna's teammate Darryl Caldwell grounded out 38 yards on 12 carries.

"They didn't get a chance to run too much in the rain last week," said Grand Island head coach Dean Santorio after the game. "Even though they carried the ball a lot, there was not a lot of room against Albion (lost 12-7) because they were awfully big up front. Plus they were playing in the slop. You didn't have a lot of room. Tonight, on dry grass you have a little more running room and they could use their speed a little bit. They both did a great job. I'm very happy with them."

Alex Webb added a 1-yard touchdown with 1:41 left in the third quarter.

Grand Island's only mistake came on a missed 23-yard field goal attempt. The Vikings got the ball on the South 7 after South punter Shane Hurley mishandled a high snap.

South was in a similar situation last year against Grand Island, trailing 21-0 after the first half but came back to lose 28-27. The Billies went for a two-point conversion to take the lead but failed to convert. That never happened this year.

"We never really stepped up and made a sincere effort to get back into the football game," said Gallo. "It was a little discouraging because we know we're a capable football team.... We went through a similar situation to them last year and we responded and this year, we weren't ready to go."

It also didn't help South when one of the team's best players, linebacker and fullback, Nick Brace, a team captain, sat the entire second half with a ice bag over his left knee. He had six first

half tackles. Sophomore Yahs Williams had nine tackles and Logan Struebing added eight tackles.

Klock and Jason Voltz intercepted passes and Webb, James Rayhill, Ryan Harnden, Mike Davis, and Nick Tomkins were in on sacks for the Vikings defense.

South (1-1) travels to Starpoint for a 2 p.m. game on Saturday.

"We're going to challenge the team and get back to preparing the way we need to," said Gallo. "The guys that are ready and hungry are going to be there. The guys that aren't ready to do that, then we'll put them to the back of the bus so to speak... We're going to get ready to win a football game at Starpoint. We're 1-1 in the division. If we can go out and play a good solid football game Saturday afternoon then we can get right in the mix as far as the division is concerned."

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com