Photo by: Joe Lovell
MARTINS FERRY – The Martins Ferry Purple Riders (1-0) host the River Pilots (0-1) on Friday. The Riders return to the site of a thrilling 56-7 victory over Shadyside in Week 1 that made head coach Justin Kropka very happy.
“When you start the season with a win, it’s always a positive,” Kropka said. “You work all summer and you want the hard work to pay off on the field. I was happy for our kids. Things were going well for us in the beginning and then it just came naturally, so you can’t take too much from one week – the biggest improvement for a football team should happen between weeks one and two. That’s what we keep in mind as our goals and our objectives. It’s more about our improvement than anything else.”
While this will be Ferry’s second home game in as many matches to start the year, the opposite is true for the visiting River Pilots, who will once again be on the road – although the trip to Martins Ferry will not be quite as long as last week’s game against Colonel Crawford, where the Pilots suffered a 55-13 loss in week one.
“The game we just played had some good parts, but also some mishaps and failures,” River head coach Mike Flannery said. “We were playing against a Division VI contender and we knew that going in. When you have a setback like that, you have to learn from it and use it to your advantage. We’re healthy and the emotions are coming back.”
“It’s a new week for us and we’re looking forward to going to Ferry and playing a football game.”
In that game, River showed explosive plays early on, like a 50-yard touchdown pass from Peyton Blue to Wyatt Stalder in the first quarter and a 61-yard touchdown run from Lucas Dennis in the second. Kropka says there’s more to River’s first game than meets the eye.
“Colonel Crawford is a regional finalist almost every year,” Kropka said of Rivers’ first-week opponent. “I think people saw that school and were shocked — but you took a team that’s 4.5 hours away, an inexperienced team right now, and they were neck-and-neck for most of the first half. Then it kind of turned into an avalanche attack and they got away from them at the end.”
The Pilots finished 9-3 last year and made it to the regional championship game, despite a number of roster changes early this season.
“I don’t think that’s a determinant of how good River is as a football team,” Kropka said. “I think they’re a really good football team, I think they’re exceptionally well coached, I have nothing but respect for coach Flannery. He always, and this is from a coach watching another coach from afar, he makes the most of the least. He does that all the time, and defensively you have coach (Mark) Holenka and coach (Chase) Grinch, who I’ve gone up against a lot in my career and I know they’re great coaches. I didn’t put a lot of importance on that result, I judged by what I saw on film, and what I saw was a good football team.”
Things definitely went better for Martins Ferry in their Week 1 game against the Tigers. The Purple Riders managed nearly 300 yards of offense in the first quarter alone, with players like Tev’n Williams, Ayden Ludolph, Maurice Barnett, Walkquem Cox and Jase Mahoney being just a few of the Ferry players who had a strong day.
“They’re very talented and gifted at almost every position,” Flannery said of his opponent this week. “They’re a fast team like in the movies and they embody what speed is all about – quickness and toughness. When you play against Ferry, you’re playing against a tough, down-to-earth football team. We like to think of ourselves that way.”
“We’re going to accept the fact that they won their opening game and that this is going to be a challenge for us. We’re not going to go into the game with a negative mindset, but it’s going to be a challenge for us to get them off the field. I have a lot of confidence in our defensive plan with coach Holenka and coach Grinch. I think we’ve got to make the plays on offense to move the sticks and keep the ball away from their very talented group of running backs and receivers.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at the Dave Bruney Football Complex.
“It always comes down to the same things,” Kropka said. “When you have two evenly matched football teams, it comes down to who makes the fewest mental mistakes, who takes care of the ball and who makes the plays at the end of the game. If we can do that, I think we’ll do well.”