Perryville football coach Brent Roth and his team had a better experience in their home opener than in week 1.
“Oh, most definitely,” he said.
After getting blown out by Oakville the week before, Perryville rebounded with a 12-0 victory over Windsor on Friday.
“It feels good to get that first win under our belt and to come home with a win,” Roth said. “There are still some things that we need to clean up, but you can never be mad when you come away with a victory on Friday night.”
Both sides had trouble getting their offenses off the ground in the first half as penalties and turnovers plagued the teams. Windsor fumbled the ball twice and Perryville once had a third and 45 on one particular drive after several holding and false start calls.
“It’s something we have to work on, and be better at,” Roth said, “We left some points out on the field out there tonight because of it.”
Perryville finally found the endzone late in the second quarter when quarterback Rilyand Graham. threw a deep pass to Gavin Hemmann for a 33-yard touchdown. Perryville had a chance to add more points on the board shortly after that when a Windsor running back attempted to hurdle a Perryville defender and fumbled the ball. The Pirates took over at midfield and Graham did throw what would have been another touchdown in the final minute, but it was called back for a penalty.
The Perryville defense came up big again as Graham threw an interception just 15 minutes into the second half. However, Ben Huber recovered a fumble inside the 15-yard line that kept the Pirates off the scoreboard.
The game went into the fourth quarter with the Pirates at the goal line after Dominic Seilyer took a screen pass 50 yards into the redzone and a few plays later, Perryville was set up nicely at the two-yard line on fourth down. A fumbled snap to start the final quarter kept the Pirates off the board once again as the Owls recovered at the one yard line.
The Windsor triple-option offense struggled all night to get going as the Pirates limited them to really no big chunk plays. Windsor had just 181 yards of offense on the night, and completed just a single pass.
“Our defense did well all night,” Roth said. “The coaches came up with a good game plan to stop that and the players executed it. This bodes well for the rest of the year because we do have a few more teams that run a similar offense. It gives us confidence that we can stop the triple option in the future.”
Perryville stopped Windsor on the ensuing drive after the fumble and the Pirates scored on a four yard pass from Graham to Barrett Wheeler to go ahead 12-0 with 3:27 left in the game.
Perryville (1-1) will face St. Vincent (0-2) on Friday as they try to snap a five game losing streak to their crosstown rival.
“I love this week,” Roth said. “It’s big for Perryville that the two teams face each other and there is always a buzz in the air. It will be a fun week and we have to make sure we are ready to go when it’s game time.”
