Ellwood fumbles away win to Freedom
Ellwood City (14) vs. Freedom (24)
Written: Aug 30, 2008
By STEVE TREU
ncsports@ncnewsonline.com
FREEDOM — Every time Freedom needed a touchdown, the Bulldogs pulled a reliable play out of their bag of tricks.
An Ellwood City fumble.
Freedom turned four fumbles by the visiting Wolverines into four touchdowns — one in each quarter — while claiming a 24-14 victory in a Midwestern Athletic Conference opener last night.
Ellwood lost a fifth fumble in the final frame, but by then the result of the game was no longer in doubt and the Bulldogs simply kneeled on the ball.
“We mishandled the ball all night,” said coach Don Phillips, who was making his debut with the Wolverines. “You can’t turn the ball over like that. Every time we fumbled, they converted it into a touchdown.”
With starting quarterback Jeremy Herzog going down with an ankle injury early in the second quarter, the Bulldogs relied on their three-headed monster of Scott Freeman (11 carries, 93 yards), Joe Ermi (16 carries, 82 yards) and Nick Pertile (5 carries, 83 yards) to control the action.
Freedom piled up 262 yards rushing, compared to just 81 for Ellwood.
Freeman, in particular, was a beast. The 6-foot, 230-pound junior did his best Jerome Bettis impersonation while bowling over defenders all evening. He broke free over left tackle for a 36-yard touchdown in the first quarter and added what turned out to be the decisive score on a 5-yarder up the middle in the third.
“With our top quarterback out we were kind of limited in what we wanted to do,” said first-year Freedom coach J.C. Summers. “But we have some studs at running back, so we just split it up between the three of them.”
After Pertile’s 23-yard touchdown run gave the Bulldogs a 12-0 lead in the second quarter, Ellwood countered on a crisp five-play drive to make it 12-6. Joe Galmarini threw to Ronald Grymes for 20 yards and Logan DiMase ran for 11 more to set up Garrett Thomas’s 28-yard scamper to the right for Ellwood’s first touchdown of the season.
The Wolverines were looking to make it a close game early in the fourth when they fumbled deep in Freedom territory, and the Bulldogs proceeded to march 85 yards the other way for the clinching score on a 1-yard plunge by backup QB Derek Lehocky.
The Wolverines produced the most exciting play of the game — and perhaps the prettiest play their fans will see all year — late in the fourth when Galmarini faded back on a play-action pass and gunned a perfect strike to Codey Hunter for a 68-yard touchdown. Hunter slipped through the Freedom secondary and caught Galmarini’s beauty in stride, waltzing into the end zone untouched.
“Codey missed last week of camp with a bad ankle and he’s still learning,” Phillips. “We need to work him in there because of his speed. We know he can get behind people. He’s a real threat.
“We had receivers open all over the field and we need to give them a chance. We have a kid who can throw and we have some emerging kids who can catch and I know we have some kids who can run. When we start getting that balance of run-pass, we’ll be all right.”
Galmarini, who also tossed to Hunter for the two-point conversion and the game’s final score, completed 50 percent of his passes (8 of 16) for 147 yards. Thomas was Ellwood’s leading rusher with 37 yards on five carries.
The result was a significant improvement for Ellwood over last year’s contest, when the Bulldogs romped to a 45-0 victory.
The Wolverines will play their home opener next Friday against Aliquippa, while Freedom travels to Beaver Falls.
Ellwood Freedom
7 First downs 14
120 Yards Rushing 275
39 Yards Lost 13
81 Net Rushing 262
17 Passes Attempted 10
8 Passes Completed 4
0 Passes Intercepted 1
147 Yards Passing 39
228 Total Yards 301
5-5 Fumbles-Lost 2-2
3-41 Punts-Average 3-35
4-30 Penalties-Yards 7-50
ELLWOOD 0 6 0 8 ‹ 14
FREEDOM 6 6 6 6 ‹ 24
Scoring plays
FREEDOM - Scott Freeman, 36-yard run (run failed)
FREEDOM - Nick Pertile, 23-yard run (pass failed)
ELLWOOD - Garrett Thomas, 28-yard run (kick failed)
FREEDOM - Freeman, 5-yard run (pass failed)
FREEDOM - Derek Lehocky, 1-yard run (kick failed)
ELLWOOD - Codey Hunter, 68-yard pass from Joe Galmarini (Hunter, pass
from Galmarini)
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