Tri-Village wins defensive battle at Ansonia.
ANSONIA – The Tri-Village Patriots defeated the Ansonia Tigers 21-7 in Friday night MVL football action.
“Matt (Macy) does a great job over there,” said Tri-Village coach, Robert Burk. “Those kids are super physical kids.”
“Ansonia played really hard all night long and they did a great job of executing what they do well,” Burk continued. “They didn’t make a lot of mistakes tonight and we did make a lot of mistakes. To get out of here with a win it feels really good.”
“Our kids played their hearts out – I love them,” said Ansonia coach, Matt Macy. “We have to go 5-0 second half of the season – that’s all that matters.”
The Patriots got on the board at 5:55 in the opening period with sophomore quarterback Braden Keeting tossing a 3-yard touchdown pass to 6’5” Josh Scantland and Keeting splitting the uprights out of the hold of Scantland to lead 7-0 over the home standing Tigers.
Tri-Village pushed its lead to 14-0 on the first play of the second quarter on an 11-yard touchdown pass with the duo of Keeting to Scantland combining for an 11-yard touchdown strike and a good PAT kick through the posts.
The teams headed to the halftime break following a second quarter defensive battle with the Patriots up 14-0.
Tri-Village ran the second half kickoff back for a touchdown only to be called back on a Patriots penalty setting up a first and 10 from the visitors own 20-yard line.
Tri-Village sophomore running back Reed Wehr raced 80-yards on the first play from scrimmage to open second half play with a touchdown giving the Patriots a 21-0 advantage with Keeting and Scantland combining for a good PAT kick.
Ansonia answered with a Peyton Beam 3-yard touchdown run at 4:23 in the third and with Connor Schmit splitting the PAT uprights the Tigers were on the board trailing 21-7 in what would be the final score of the night with the teams battling to a scoreless fourth quarter.
“Obviously we want to play a cleaner game,” said Coach Burk. “The second half we thought we had a good plan, we scored on the first play basically at the beginning of the half and then … it was just a real choppy half with the penalties and turnovers so we have to clean that up and be ready to go next week against North.”
