Tipp City (9-2) certainly had their work cut out for them against the extremely talented (8-3) St. Francis Desales team. With three highly recruited seniors; quarterback Nick Gentile (#14), fullback Robert Perrine (#25) and tailback Adam Griffin (#24) the DeSales Stallions challenged the Tippecanoe Red Devils early.. and often.
During the first quarter, the Red Devils suffered 3 turnovers and 3 blocked punts resulting in 24 of the 41 points that the DeSales Stallions racked up during the first half, handicapping their offense and discouraging the tough Red Devil defense.
After the first half, average starting offensive position for DeSales was on the Tippecanoe 34 yard line, conversely Tipp starting position is on their own 18 ½.
Unfortunately there were no adjustments in the second half that Tippecanoe could make what with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter when Stallions #15 Corey Scott pulls down a Ryan Landwehr interception and returns it for 45 yards and 6 points. The follow-up extra point was blocked by our Red Devils leaving the score at 54-7 DeSales.
Tippecanoe continued to fight during the fourth quarter with Red Devil #13 Burrelle running for 55 yards for the TD and #44 Kyle Pignatiello adding 1 to make the game’s final score 54-14.
“Beginning in the first quarter, we found ourselves backed up with short field,” said Tippecanoe coach Charlie Burbacher, “I feel that we executed the defense we wanted to, but then it became that they picked up on everything.”
When asked about his seniors, coach Burbacher replied,”our seniors have been through three really good years, (as a team) if you want to advance, this is a great example of what (teams) you have to play.” Coach continued, “We will reference this game next summer, when (players) are not mentally or physically into it, you have to remember back on it (this game).”
When asked about the Stallions special teams performance coach Ryan Wiggins shared “we didn’t prepare this (three blocked punts) for tonight’s game, however we tried to exploit their weaknesses.” When asked about the speed of his team, coach Wiggins continued “I liked facing this team, (they are) hard-nosed and dangerous, but as we do not play within a conference (like Tipp), we see a little of everything.. including speed”