By Ray Curren
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
LANGDON — The Stevens football team has no control over the teams that currently reside above them and can’t take back the early-season losses that have the Cardinals currently on the outside of the NHIAA Division III playoff picture looking in.
They do have the power to win the games remaining on their schedule and put immense pressure on those in front of them, however, and they did so in emphatic fashion Friday night, physically dominating rival Fall Mountain, 28-0, in the inaugural Silva Bowl.
Ralph Silva, who died in 2013, was an athletic director at Fall Mountain and long-time coach at both FM and Stevens. Ralph’s son, Paul, stepped down as Stevens head coach after last season but remains an assistant along with his son (and Ralph’s grandson) David.
“We have preached physicality the last three weeks and I thought that showed,” Stevens coach Josh Duford said. “The one thing we have been consistent with lately is effort and intensity.”
The Cardinals (3-3) set the tone early, taking the opening kickoff and keeping it for 10 plays, only one of them outside the tackles, finished off by a Jai-Lique Ribeiro 12-yard touchdown run. Kaden Thyne intercepted a Zach Patch pass on Fall Mountain’s second play from scrimmage and Stevens kept the ball for the rest of the first quarter, although their drive ended with a fumble.
But any life the Wildcats (4-2) tried to latch onto was sniffed out by the Stevens defense, which did not allow a first down in the entire first half. Cardinals quarterback Tyler Christian only threw five passes on the evening, but spent most of his time running over FM defenders and did so from 11 yards out for another Stevens touchdown, making it 14-0 with 4:42 in the first half.
Fall Mountain did get a couple of first downs when it got the ball to start the second half, but the drive stalled at the Stevens 38-yard line, which would turn out to be its deepest penetration of the game.
“We were aggressive as a team and we didn’t let them have anything easy,” senior Lucas Smith, part of the Stevens line that controlled the line of scrimmage, said.
Stevens then finished off the competitive portion of the proceedings with an almost seemingly cruel 15 play drive that took 8:31 off the clock and spilled into the fourth quarter, Christian (24 carries, 102 yards) finally barreling in for his second score from 2 yards out against an exhausted Wildcat front line. Ribeiro (97 yards,16 carries) finished off the scoring on Stevens’ next possession.
Patch did not complete a pass, but finished with a hard-earned 45 yards on 12 carries before leaving with an ankle injury early in the fourth quarter after taking another hard hit from the Stevens defense. The Wildcats finished with just 80 total yards, 23 of them coming in the final minute.
“Football isn’t a game that you can roll lackadaisical and play a team like Stevens,” Fall Mountain coach Orion Binney said. “They came and punched us in the mouth, and we couldn’t come back from it.”
Fall Mountain still sits a game ahead of Stevens in the Division III standings but will be underdog in all three of its remaining contests against Inter-Lakes, Trinity, and Campbell. Ironically, Stevens will likely become Wildcat fans next week as an upset over Inter-Lakes would possibly throw the tiebreaker for the fourth and final playoff spot into disarray and help the Cardinals, who lost to the Lakers in their season opener.
Meanwhile, Stevens will be heavy favorites to win its next two games, which would set up a showdown with Trinity at Barnes Park on Oct. 28, perhaps with a playoff berth on the line. Duford doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, however, and just wants his suddenly rolling team to be better every week.
“It’s basically a playoff game every week for us because we can’t afford any more losses. We just have to keep treating it that way no matter who we’re playing,” Duford said.
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