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Springfield Tigers win 4th straight

=BERLIN CENTER — It was a Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference battle when Western Reserve hosted Springfield on Friday.

After clawing their way to a 7-0 advantage, the Tigers pulled away with a 21-0 victory.

“This was a good win for our football team,” Springfield coach Sean Guerriero said. “It was a tough, physical game. I thought our line played outstanding.”

The Tigers led 7-0 at the end of the first quarter, through halftime and at the end of three quarters of play.

Springfield drove to the Western Reserve 7 yard line, but on 3rd and 2 junior Kolten Ruark was sacked by senior linebacker Jake Grindley for a 8-yard loss. Ruark’s 4th down pass fell incomplete as the Devils’ defense forced a turnover on downs.

Western Reserve quarterback Luke Henning completed a pass, but the play was called back because of an illegal man down field.

The Devils faced a 4th and 1, but a false start penalty moved them back 5 yards and they decided to punt.

Springfield senior Ryan Carcelli ripped off a 71-yard rush down the sideline to the Devils’ 5 yard line. However, the Tigers fumbled the ball back to Reserve on the very next play.

“There were some big plays,” Guerriero said. “They stopped us a couple of times. I’m proud of the way our kids played in the second half.”

Western Reserve got the ball to begin the second half. The Devils put a good drive together, but ended up turning it over on downs.

Springfield drained the rest of the third quarter clock before Carcelli made it 14-0, on a 4-yard touchdown run, 2 minutes into the fourth quarter.

Then, the Devils had some trickery up their sleeves when Henning handed the ball off to sophomore Jack Darney on a reverse. Darney launched a 59-yard, left-handed, bomb to junior Ethan Cannon. Reserve fumbled the ball away on the next play though.

“This was an opportunity, for our very young football team, to look at the measuring stick,” Western Reserve coach John Armeni said. “I think Springfield is the measuring stick of small-school football in this area. They do a lot of the things that we’d like to do in the future.

“That physical, grind-it-out, nature is exactly what we want to be able to do. I think this will be a good learning experience for our young guys. This is a rough part of the building process. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We’ve played some tough competition.”

Sophomore Dante Gentile had a big gain for Springfield before Carcelli punched it in, from 2 yards out, with 1:20 left in the ballgame.

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