By Ed Muniz-Photos by Jenn-Anne Gledhill
**Additional Photos are available for purchase at justallsports.zenfolio.com/2022pioneers.**
Returning to their home field, riding a three-game winning streak, the JV Pioneers were a confident bunch.
Playing in front of the home crowd and celebrating their Homecoming, some “Home Cookin’” would surely propel them to victory on this special yearly occurrence.
But a key member of their success suffered a setback with a non-football related injury, which would have him sitting this one out in street clothes.
Missing Mason Marable, arguably the best player on the team, would result in a rearranging not only offensively, but also defensively for the Pioneers, in a battle of one loss teams.
Try as they might, the Pioneers simply couldn’t overcome a missing talent that is Marable, resulting in a 32-12 pasting during the Pioneers Homecoming by the Jr. Knights.
The Pioneers got off to a good start when Sam Basiorka took the opening kickoff and returned it 28-yards to the Jr. Knight 34-yard-line.
Set up by the great return, the Pioneers had a short field ahead of them. Vinnie Annel and the Pioneers benefited from poor tackling and penalties which had them just inside the Jr. Knights 20.
A tackle for loss followed by a sack of Quarterback Jack Bullington, moved the Pioneers back to the Jr. Knight 34.
On the next play, Bullington found Ayden Toth with the completion, but the ball hawking of a Jr. Knight defender, ripped the football from Toth at the 17-yard-line to gain possession.
Two plays later, the Jr. Knights ran up the gut and raced to the end-zone 83-yards later for the score and the 6-0 lead.
The Pioneers gave it right back three plays later via a Bullington pass being intercepted.
What wasn’t happening during the Pioneers 3-game winning streak was turnovers, here they had two in less than a quarter of play.
The Jr. Knights closed out the open quarter and continued into the second quarter. They began a 10-play drive using up much of the clock.
Pioneers defense gave a few yards at a time but couldn’t find a stop. Annel, Nathaniel Owei, Kyree Gills, Nick Shamma, Dominic Gigliotti and Colin McElligott manage to come up with tackles and finally stopped the Jr. Knights forcing a turnover on downs.
The Pioneers again would lose the ball on a run by Annel. Once again, the ball was stripped from him, but this time the Jr. Knights scored a touchdown on the strip from 26-yards, extending their lead to 12-0.
The only thing the Jr. Knights weren’t having success on was converting kicks.
Trying to get back in the game, the Pioneers went to Annel repeatedly. Fatigue surely played a factor with the pounding the Pioneer running-back was taking.
Annel was game and finished off the first half with a seven-yard run.
Opening the second half, the Jr. Knights upped their lead to 18-0 after a long touchdown run. If the Pioneers were going to stay in the game, they needed to find the end-zone on their next possession.
Annel took the kickoff and got to the near sideline and proceeded to run past every Jr. Knight on his 64-yard kick-return for touchdown. The score now had the Pioneers trailing 18-6
The Jr. Knights weren’t fazed. They took their next possession and didn’t take long to score again. A pass-play earned them their fourth touchdown of the game and took the score to 24-6.
It was apparent that the Pioneers were surely missing the play of Marable who is an excellent defender and scorer.
Dropping down again by three scores, the Pioneers looked defeated as their hopes of getting back into the game went up in flames.
Mistakes and dropped balls plagued them as they began the final stanza.
After the turnover on downs, the Jr. Knights went for the jugular and again scored their fifth touchdown of the game. A short 1-yard run brought the score to 32-6 after finally converting a kick for two more points.
The Pioneers did manage to closeout the game with a long pass-play from Bullington to Annel that went for 36-yards followed by another completion again to Annel for their second touchdown of the day from 15-yards out.
Fatigue was clearly visible on the Pioneer faces as the game concluded with the 32-12 loss.
With the win, the Jr. Knights jumped to 3-1 on the season and the Pioneers fell to 3-2.
Fifth Quarter play saw one solo touchdown scored between the two rivals, and the Pioneers Matthew Bullington would provide it with his run to the end-zone.
Offensively, the Pioneers saw several yards picked up by Ashton Brennan, Bullington, Ethan Vinson and Joshua Montell.
The single score would stand up as the Pioneers defense didn’t budge against the Jr. Knights.
Tackles or assists by Brennan, Colin Kluever, Christian Czerwonka, Mark Grech-Lisula, Nicholas Davis, John Curran, Joey Driscoll, Luke O’Reilly, Andrew Wojtanowicz, Ameen Rayan and Henry Byrne kept the Jr. Knghts scoreless.
Other Pioneers participating in the Homecoming game included Ryan Beeler, Thomas Elliot, Kyle Krokos, Caden Votteler, Mason Overmyer, Wyatt Heinze, Layth Zughayer, Ryan Almasri, Alex Kantzavelos, Eli Citlau, Terrin Lovitt, Nicholas Baniewicz, Nolan Burns, Jude Doftert, Santino Marrella, William Reilly, Jacob Oberman, Dominic Rizza, Michael Sraga and Brady Straka.
Looking spectacular at halftime, Pioneer JV Cheerleaders had all eyes on them when they took to the field at halftime. Entertaining everyone was Alyssa Abed, Lily Carroll, Issabela Enriquez, Erica Gonsowski, Madeleine Heinz, Layla Jeffries, Madalyn Marable, Hailey McDonald, Liliana Minard, Lucy Moran, Avery Nugent, Maeve O’Connor, Paige Pomonis, Arianna Ramadani, Taylor Ruisz, Jordyn Shamma and Klaudia Willis.
