R-W outscores Princeville 55-40
By NICK VLAHOS
For The Weekly Post
PRINCEVILLE – ROWVA-Williamsfield Coach Grant Gullstrand wasn’t expecting his football team’s game against Princeville to last almost 2 hours, 45 minutes.
Princeville coaching counterpart Jon Carruthers wasn’t expecting the teams to combine for 95 points. Nor perhaps for his second-string quarterback to pass for 292 yards and four touchdowns.
R-W junior tight end Talan Hull wasn’t expecting to have much room to maneuver on offense. But Hull and his teammates can expect a lot more attention after a 55-40 victory Sept. 15 at Tom Bruna Field.
The LincolnLand Conference small-school triumph made the Cougars 4-0 and put them into sole possession of second place in the league before their home game Friday night against South Fulton. At 3-0 in league play, they’re one game behind Stark County.
“Obviously, our goal isn’t just to win four games, but you come out each week and you want to go 1-0,” Gullstrand said. “We’ve done that so far.”
R-W did it last week with a multifaceted offense and a defense that withstood an all-out aerial effort from Princeville junior quarterback Jake Williams and the seven receivers who caught his passes.
Bryan Bertlshofer ran for two touchdowns and 185 yards for R-W. Spencer Brown ran for two more scores and caught one of Riley Danner’s three touchdown passes. Hull caught the others.
Variety was key, according to Gullstrand, in a punt-less game that featured touchdowns on the first nine possessions.
“Someone was saying, ‘That doesn’t look like the old-school ROWVA-Princeville score,’” Carruthers said. “Both of us had the offense rolling.”
The Princes (2-2, 2-1) stopped first.
Princeville began the third quarter with a drive that lasted 6½ minutes. Substituting for injured quarterback Logan Carruthers, Williams completed passes to four receivers. A Cougars penalty pushed the Princes to the R-W 8.
But Williams followed with three incompletions, then slipped and fell as he rolled from the line of scrimmage on fourth down. R-W took possession and scored about three minutes later, on a 2-yard Bertlshofer run, to make it 42-26.
“You get down in the red zone and you’ve got to score, especially in a shootout like this,” Coach Carruthers said.
Hull’s two pass receptions didn’t break the Princes but didn’t allow them to break away. Danner found Hull for first-half touchdowns of 52 and 47 yards. Both were rapid responses (three- and two-play drives, respectively) to Princeville points that narrowed the R-W lead to one.
“They didn’t really game-plan toward me as much as I thought they were going to,” Hull said.
Also unexpected was the early departure of Princeville running back/linebacker Tayshaun Kieser. With 8:00 left in the second quarter, he was helped off the field with an apparent right-ankle injury following a tackle. Kieser sought off-premises medical attention at halftime.
Following the game, Jon Carruthers was uncertain about the playing status of his son and Kieser for a home game Friday vs. Monmouth United.
R-W is rolling toward a conference showdown with Stark County, set for Sept. 29 in Oneida.
