Trinity falls behind early, can’t catch up
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Belle Vernon's wide reciever Marcel McCaskill leaves Trinity's Samuel Trapuzzano in the dust as he gets a touchdown off of the kick off return.
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Trinity's quarterback Forrest Cullings dives for a couple more inches to get the first down during the first quarter of the game against Belle Vernon.
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Trinity's runningback Samuel Trapuzzano celebrates as he runs the ball in for a touchdown during the second quarter of the game against Belle Vernon on Friday, August 29.
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Belle Vernon's runningback Luke Durigon is tackled by Trinity's Garret Guthrie during the first quarter of the game.
The 2014 season didn’t start in grand fashion for the Trinity High School football team.
Belle Vernon’s Marcel McCaskill returned the game’s opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown and the Leopards had success running on the Hillers’ defense en route to a 45-14 Big Nine Conference victory Friday at Hiller Field.
“When you spot a team seven points, especially a good football team, it is not very good,” Trinity coach Ryan Coyle said. “They grabbed the momentum and they were able to hold the momentum. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to recover from that.”
After a three-and-out from the Hillers, the Leopards offense got right to work under new head coach Matt Humbert.
Humbert brought his spread attack from Ringgold and had similar success as he enjoyed with the Rams.
Tailbacks Anthony Levis and Luke Durigon put their stamps on the game early as Belle Vernon (1-0, 1-0) eclipsed 100 rushing yards in the first quarter.
Levis capped a nine-play drive with a three-yard touchdown run, and after Trinity quarterback Forest Cullings was intercepted by Phil Taylor, Durigon got going with several big runs in a 14-play Belle Vernon scoring drive. The time-consuming drive was capped by a 10-yard touchdown from fullback Zac Spate to make it 19-0.
“I was pretty happy overall,” said Humbert. “You are always a little apprehensive coming into the first game. The tempo of the offense wasn’t where I wanted it, but we were still able to play pretty fast. It was nice to establish the ground game early.”
Things could have been worse for the Hillers as Belle Vernon had a couple of drops on deep passes that would have been touchdowns.
But BV quarterback Travis Snyder eventually got himself a touchdown pass, hitting Derek Verkleeren with a 16-yard scoring strike late in the second quarter to stretch the Leopards’ lead to 25-0.
Trinity got something going late in the quarter, scoring on a drive that was helped out by a roughin-the-kicker call that extended the drive. Cullings then hit Sam Trapuzzano with a 13-yard touchdown pass to get the Hillers on the scoreboard at 25-7.
With the Hillers having some momentum coming out of halftime, Belle Vernon forced a quick three-and-out, which turned out to be a big part of the game. The Leopards’ offense stepped on the gas after that.
Both Durigon and Levis had touchdown runs, and Snyder threw another TD pass, this time to Timmy Labuda to make it a 45-7 game after three quarters.
“Not the way you want to start the half,” Coyle said,”especially after gaining some momentum and making some adjustments in the locker room.”
The difference was the Leopards simply won the battle at the line of scrimmage. Belle Vernon rushed for more than 200 yards, including a 119-yard, two-touchdown effort from Levis. The Belle Vernon defense held the Hillers to only 29 yards rushing. Not only did the Leopards shut down the run, they sacked Cullings five times, including three by defensive lineman Dylan Reed.
“I wish we could have cleaned some stuff up,” said Humbert. “But we were good up front all game. I was actually nervous coming out of the locker room because, if they would have scored then, I knew we would have had a game on our hands. But getting that three-and-out was the difference.”
A bright spot for the Hillers was Cullings, who made some big throws. He completed 12-of-23 passes for 206 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
“We have to clean things up,” said Coyle. “You have to focus on the little things. You can’t outplay teams if you can’t block down or squeeze the point of attack on the defensive side. We just have to keep our kids fired up and positive.”