CONNEAUT —
A new era has begun for the Grand Valley football team with a 14-6 win over Conneaut on Friday at Conneaut Stadium.
It was the first win for coach John Glavickas, who took over for the Mustangs after 16 years as an assistant coach.
Jake Vormelker got things rolling for GV when he picked off a Troy Colucci pass on the first play of the third period and ran it back 7 yards, to the Spartan 30. Seven plays later, Stanley Sirrine blasted into the end zone to knot the score at 6-6.
After a second consecutive bad punt, the Mustangs started at the Conneaut 27-yard line. Five plays did the trick, with Vormelker connecting with Sirrine on a pass from the 15, for the clincher. Kyle Orgovan, who spent the first half of the game at quarterback ran in for the two-point conversion.
The Mustang defense tightened after letting Conneaut (0-1) reach the GV 12 midway through the fourth period.
“At first, I think there were a lot of nerves playing into things,” Glavickas said. “Both teams are young. I told our kids at halftime to just do what they had to do to play good assignment football. There were a lot of mistakes going both ways.
“We plan on using two quarterbacks this season, and when we went to Jake in the second half, he brought a little different attitude to our offense with the football. Considering how much time these kids spent watching the super group of kids we had the last four years, I thought we did very well. We didn't make many real adjustments for the second half, but I told the kids what they needed to do.”
The first half favored the Spartans behind a Wildcat offense that thrust sophomore Troy Colucci into the role of quarterback with Sam Distelrath and Nick Root both out indefinitely with injuries. In the second half, Conneaut began to struggle.
“Mistakes were the big killer tonight,” Spartan coach Rocco Dobran said. “I think we may have gotten a little tired late in the game, too, but the effort from our kids was superb. GV came out in a cover two defense in the second half, which we expected, but they just made a few more plays and we had a couple mistakes at the wrong time.
“I was really pleased with how Troy played, considering he was just thrown into the spot recently. He handled himself really well, but also had a couple mistakes that hurt, but that will happen.”
Colucci ran for 122 yards on the night and passed for 61 more. He had 90 yards at halftime.
“We did a much better job defensively in the second half,” Glavickas said. “We simply solidified what we knew we had to do. It came down to better asssignment football. I thought the drive we had late in the first half showed the kids they could get the job done, and we just believed in ourselves a little more.”
GV drove to the Spartan 3-yard line as the first half closed, and the effort carried over to the second half.
Kelly is a freelance writer from Jefferson.
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