HARPERSFIELD TOWNSHIP — If the Geneva football program’s future is to center around sophomore running back Aaron Rossi, then the future should be very bright.

Rossi, the Eagles’ sophomore sensation, continued his assault on PAC defenses Friday night by racking up 228 yards on 39 carries and four touchdowns.

The Eagles (3-6, 2-4 PAC) needed every inch as they held off a second half offensive explosion by the North Rangers (1-8, 1-5 PAC) to prevail 34-26 Friday night at Spire Stadium in Geneva.

“He’s a hard worker and a hard runner,” Geneva coach Tony Hassett said about his star. “He always works hard in practice, he has great speed and he had a heck of a game tonight. What we’re really proud of tonight is the offensive line opened up some holes. He and Joey (Joy) ran the ball well tonight, our offensive line answered the bell tonight every time Eastlake scored.”

North coach George Burich was more than impressed as well.  

“Trying to stop that kid was tough,” Burich said.  “He’s the next up-and-coming thing in the PAC”

Rossi got Geneva on the board with a 2-yard run to cap off an 11-play, 69-yard drive.

Then in the second quarter it was Dakota Brinninger that made a big play. The senior wide receiver took a pitch on a counter play and raced 41 yards for the Eagles second touchdown of the night.

“I knew that our offense was playing very well and I had a lot of confidence in our line,” Brinninger said. “Our guard, Eric Juncker made a great block and I just hit the hole and there was no one there.”

The Eagles took a 14-0 lead to the locker room for halftime. The Rangers threatened to score on two occasions but came up empty. Kyle Denihan had was not able to hang onto a pass in the endzone and later A.J. Rosciszewski came down just out of bounds with what would have been a scoring play.

“We really missed out on some opportunities in the first half,” Burich said. “We had guys getting open on their routes. At halftime we talked about maybe trying to run the ball, but the coaches were like, ‘hey we got guys getting open, lets stick with what we’re doing.’”

The Rangers did stick with what they were doing and it paid off. Quarterback Anton Vrebac hooked up with Ben Josipovic on an eleven yard touchdown pass to get the Rangers on the board. The play capped a six-play, 67-yard drive that took just less than two minutes and set the tone for the second half.

Geneva however, answered right back with a quick drive of their own. Joy took off on a 24-yard scamper to give the Eagles the ball at the Rangers 28 yardline. Two plays later Rossi broke off another 24-yard run then followed it with a 5-yard run for the touchdown.

Then with 1:14 left in the third quarter Rossi scored again, this time on a 1-yard plunge to cap a 12-play drive that chewed up almost six minutes off the clock.

The Rangers would fight back though as Vrebac completed back to back 25 yard passes to Anthony Strnad and Josipovic to set up a one yard run by Vrebac to get the Rangers back into the game.

Vrebac would finish the game 291 all-purpose yards doing most of the damage in the second half.

“I said to him (Vrebac) if we’re gonna get back in this game, we’re going to have to ride on your shoulders,” Burich said. “I think he did a nice job of doing that.”

The  game tightened more when the Rangers recovered an onside kick to set them up at the Geneva 46.

“We kick a lot of short kicks and squib kicks to try and get a shot to get the football,” Burich said. “We haven’t been real good this year defensively because of some injuries so we thought we ‘d try to play on a short field and see what happens”

What happened was  another touchdown for the Rangers as Vrebac found Josipovic for a 10-yard score.

The Rangers once again went for the onside kick but this time Geneva’a Austin Clutter fell on it. “That’s a  young sophomore playing corner for us and he made a hell of a play there,” Hasset said.   “It didn’t look like it was going to go ten yards then it changed directions and he stepped up and got it.”

After recovering the onside kick, Rossi scored his fourth touchdown of the night, this time on a 23 yard run to extend Geneva’s lead to 34-20.

North answered with another touchdown pass to Josipovic.  

Geneva however was able to recover another onside kick to seal the win.

“We were able to persevere and hang on tonight,” Hassett said.  “For a young team like us, that’s important.

Shaffer is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.

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