{"id":16502,"date":"2016-08-27T16:24:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T20:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=16502"},"modified":"2016-08-29T07:22:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T11:22:31","slug":"unionville-cant-overcome-miscues-in-opening-game-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=16502","title":{"rendered":"Unionville can’t overcome miscues in opening game loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Powerful Spring-Ford dominates, 33-3<\/em><\/h2>\n

By Al Tustin<\/strong>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe stars might lie, but the numbers never do.\u201d \u2014 Mary Chapin Carpenter.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"UHSSF-3\"

Unionville’s Mike Cresta (53) fights in the trenches against the Spring Ford offensive line. Jim Gill photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 While it\u2019s possible that the stars were aligned for Unionville High School in its 2016 season opener against Spring-Ford, the numbers may have predicted a different story:<\/span><\/p>\n

First off, the Rams are a 6A school with nearly twice the population of 5A Unionville High. Second, the Indians are a very young team with many new starters, especially on offense. Third, and this was the killer, mistakes, as in too many Unionville miscues to stay with one of the top programs in southeast Pennsylvania.<\/span><\/p>\n

The result, pre-ordained or not, was a tough 33-3 loss to Spring-Ford, Friday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

And while some of the younger players managed to shake off opening night jitters and their lack of experience and play better as the game progressed, key turnovers and mistakes at crucial moments broke open a game that been closely contested. Youth and inexperience reared their head at the worst time, head coach Pat Clark said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"UHSSF-1\"

Unionville’s Jesse Gill gets to Spring-Ford QB T.J. Pergine. Jim Gill photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not going to be an excuse much longer around here,\u201d Clark said after the game, \u201cand really, it\u2019s not an excuse now \u2014 but our kids know, every kid in our program knows the level we expect to play at and every kid know that we\u2019re going to work together to be a better football team next week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the 0-1 Indians gamely hung in with the Rams \u2014 the Indians managed to stop them repeatedly early on and grabbed a 3-0 lead on a Matt Manwaring field goal. Things started to unravel in the second quarter, when Spring-Ford QB T.J. Pergine \u2014 a junior making his first varsity start \u2014 started to find his rhythm. Pergine hit Stone Scarcelle with a 49-yard pass, which set up a quick 15-yard TD dash by Selwyn Simpson. In a flash, the Indians\u2019 lead was gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Unionville didn\u2019t quit \u2014 again the offense got things going, in part keyed by the running of Jack Adams and pushed the ball all the way down to the Rams\u2019 1 yard line. But then a miscue \u2014 in this case \u2014 a fumble stopped the Indians cold in their tracks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seizing an opportunity to take control of the game, Spring-Ford immediately marched down the field behind Pergrine\u2019s arm \u2014 a 34-yard pass to Quinn McKenna and then a 40-yard scoring pass to Scarcelle to make it 14-3 at the half.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Unionville

Unionville QB Alex Gorgone looks to evade Spring-Ford defenders \u2014 the junior QB had an uneven debut as a signal caller. Jim Gill photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

The third quarter wasn\u2019t much better \u2014 and again it was miscues that cost the Indians. QB Alex Gorgone, another junior making his first varsity start, was picked off by Scarcelle, who promptly raced down the field for a score. Two more turnovers in the second half doomed the Indians\u2019 chances of getting back into the contest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, with less mistakes a bit more seasoning, this might have been a much closer contest \u2014 Adams and running back cohort Dante Graham showed flashes and the defense played well despite battling a larger and deeper opponent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next week\u2019s contest at the tough Academy Park \u2014 a highly athletic team that at times can be undone by mistakes \u2014 will need Unionville to clean up some of its issues if it is to post its first win of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to tackle in space and take care of the football,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI think we got a good physical test this week, so I think we\u2019ll be ready physically.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Powerful Spring-Ford dominates, 33-3 By Al Tustin, Staff Writer, The Times \u201cThe stars might lie, but the numbers never do.\u201d \u2014 Mary Chapin Carpenter. EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 While it\u2019s possible that the stars were aligned for Unionville High School in its 2016 season opener against Spring-Ford, the numbers may have predicted a different story: First […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[6269,3279,811],"class_list":["post-16502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured","tag-football","tag-unionville-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16510,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16502\/revisions\/16510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}