Nativity ground game sinks Tri-Valley
Nativity's Sam Walborn chugs for yardage during Friday's Schuylkill/Colonial Blue Division clash against Tri-Valley. Nativity won 31-14 (Photo by Charlie Roth).
HEGINS — Nativity needed to bounce back in a big way.
After a tough Schuylkill/Colonial Blue Division setback to a very good Williams Valley squad last week, the Green Wave could ill afford another one in what is, top to bottom, a very strong division.
Nativity couldn’t have scripted it any better.
Riding a tough-as-nails, blue-collar ground game, the Wave (3-1, 2-1 Blue) cruised to a 34-13 divisional road victory over Tri-Valley, handing the Dawgs (3-1, 2-1) their first setback of the season.
“Here’s the deal,” Nativity head coach Pat Mason said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Williams Valley.
“They have a great football team, but I thought we did enough to win that game. It was a tough one to take. We had a rough week of practice. We’ve lost so many tough games over the last few years, and for them to give me what they gave me today, I’m so proud of them.”
What the Green Wave gave Mason was a dominating ground game, running mostly between the tackles and piling up 341 of the team’s 407 total offensive yards. Running backs Sam Walborn and Sam Spolski both surpassed 100 yards on the night, with Walborn putting up 182 and Spolski following with 136. They were nearly unstoppable.
“We have great running backs, and we just click,” Walborn said. “We’ve been playing together for so long now.
“Last week after that Williams Valley game, we were just like we’ll shake it up. We had a tough week of practice. We needed people to step up this week and we just gave it our all.”
And, despite a close first half that ended with Nativity holding a 20-13 advantage, the Green Wave defense gave a performance that was nearly as impressive as the offense, limiting the Dawgs to only 57 yards on the ground and 211 overall.
“These kids listen to everything I say, and they give me everything they have,” Mason said. “Our offense was clicking.
“We were up and down the field. Our three running backs are tough to handle.”
And while the running game was tough for Tri-Valley to handle, it was Nativity’s air attack that put the first points on the board when quarterback Ben Kreitzer hit wideout Noah Dolbin for a 13-yard touchdown hookup late in the first quarter. On the game, Kreitzer completed four passes, all to Dolbin, good for 66 yards.
Early in the second quarter, Spolski scored the first of his two touchdowns on the night to make it 14-0.
Tri-Valley battled back.
On the very next series, Blake Schwartz found Cole Gemberling with a short pass and Gemberling rumbled 60 yards for a first down at the Nativity 5-yard line. On the very next play, Gemberling rambled in for the Dawgs first touchdown.
Spolski’s second score, this one on a 31-yard run, pushed the Nativity lead to 20-7 with just over two minutes remaining in the first half.
But, again, Tri-Valley responded. This time, Schwartz hit wideout Trey Porter behind the Nativity secondary and the speedster raced 39 yards, making the score 20-13 with just over a minute remaining before the halftime break.
The second half? That was all Nativity.
Walborn’s 71-yard scoring run midway through the third quarter made it 27-13, then a 7-yard scoring run by Michael Stank early in the fourth quarter put the game completely out of reach.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tri-Valley,” Mason said. “I mean, they’re the big dogs, man.
“We had to knock them off. Our goal is to win a district championship, and these guys work hard for me. We’re laser focused. We want to go on a run. We had one bump in the road, but we’re just going to keep working. We stepped up when we needed to step up.”
Tri-Valley head coach Jeff Sampson, whose team heads to Williams Valley next Friday night for another big divisional showdown, said his team will need to put the disappointing performance in the rear-view mirror and do what the Green Wave did against his team. … Bounce back.
“We just did not play well from the start,” Sampson said. “Just keep going. This is a good group of kids, and all year they’ve responded well. We’ll see how they respond now.”
