The Ile Camera
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
GI Junior Devils square off with Lincoln Park
PUBLISHED: October 13, 2006
The following is a roundup of games played last weekend between the Grosse Ile Jr. Devils and the Lincoln Park Railsplitters in youth football.
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Freshman
The Grosse Ile Junior Devils defeated Lincoln Park 13-7 in a matchup of undefeated teams. With the victory, the Junior Devils improved to 5-0 and have an inside track for the top seed in the upcoming Downriver Youth Football playoffs.
Grosse Ile's defense was stellar in holding the typically high-powered Railsplitters offense to just one touchdown.
"As a group they all play hard," said Head Coach Ken Camilleri. "We teach 11 tacklers on the ball carrier and to never stop pursuing."
Grosse Ile scored late in the fourth quarter to take the lead. Lincoln Park had the ball for the final two minutes of the game, but ran out of time before reaching the end zone.
"Our defense is very quick and we don't typically give up long plays, so I thought we were in pretty good shape," Camilleri said.
Grosse Ile's offense, which usually doesn't have a problem scoring, found it rough going against a stingy Lincoln Park defense.
"This was not our best game as far as blocking and we must improve to be successful," Camilleri said.
"We found out that Lincoln Park is a very well coached team and I am just happy that we found a way to get the win."
The Grosse Ile freshmen play at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Taylor against the Taylor Mustangs.
Junior varsity
The junior varsity won a hard-fought 22-12 game Saturday despite having two touchdowns called back because of penalties.
"We played a much better game than we did the week before; we came out fired up and took it right to the Rails," said Head Coach Mike Crabtree. "The touchdowns we had called back were pretty clean plays and should have counted, but we fought through the refs and the Rails to win a big game that kept us right in the playoff hunt."
Touchdown runs by David Ritchie and David Duclo led the way while Brian Christen kicked two extra points.
"The offensive line did a much better job this week, but we still need to work on staying on our blocks longer," said Crabtree, who praised the play of Karl Baker, Michael Rodgers, Justin Chaplin, Mitch Berardi, Ryan Thompson, Jacob Zochowski, Kevin Mientkiewicz, Trevor Woods and Allen Bonds.
Chase Abraham and Jordan Nellenbach were all over the field for the Junior Devils' defense.
Crabtree also gave high marks to Tristan Pluff, Brandon Moskall, Roger Berry and A.J. Gary. The "Monster D" was led by Merritt McCrumb, Christian Hardin, Martin Iverson and Alex Zielman.
Varsity
Despite what the scoreboard read at the end of the day, the varsity Junior Devils played their best game of the season.
Playing against the undefeated Rails, the team fell 26-8 to fall to 1-4 on the season.
"Lincoln Park had their hands full all day long," Coach Doug Emery said. "The defense again played well, surrendering just one long drive at the beginning of the game and forcing another crucial turnover."
With the Junior Devils backed up to their own end zone, Cody Perrault forced a fumble for the second game in a row. Louie DiPonio, playing with two broken fingers, recovered the fumble and returned it into Lincoln Park territory to end the scoring threat.
The Devils got their only score in the third quarter with a nice run by quarterback Adam Curtis. Kicker William Holton-Snider added two points of his own with his first successful point after attempt.
Tyler Traster played "his best game of the year, running hard throughout the game," Emery said.
The varsity plays against the 2-3 Taylor Mustangs at 4 p.m. tomorrow at Taylor Truman High School.
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