By Ed Muniz-Photos by Jenn Anne Gledhill
** Additional Photos are Available for Purchase at https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p258533579 **
Coach Alan Krokos of the Lightweight Pioneers entered this season with a bit of an unknown.
Last season, Krokos and his Super Lightweight team captured a River Valley Youth Football League Title.
He also saw his second unit hit the Jackpot, going on to win a Wednesday Night Football League Championship.
Heading into this 2023 season, he would face some unfamiliar territory. For the previous three years, he had coached the same group of boys that produced many victories and several championships.
This year, Alan Krokos and staff move up to the Lightweight Division. With the move comes new players and the loss of players he’d coached previously.
“We have 10 new boys on this team that have not played before, and we left some down in Super Lightweight.”
Sometimes with addition, you get subtraction, especially in sports. In football there’s a period of acclimation, a feel for how one fits in and a process of having that camaraderie that results in wins.
So, when the Pioneers played host to the Mount Greewood Colts, it’s possible there was a sense of the unknow of how his team would perform.
After four quarters of play, we now know what the Lightweight Pioneers will bring to each contest after dispatching the visiting Colts, 27-0 to open the 2023 season.
“Overall, a good start to week one of a long football season,” said Krokos of his teams’ performance.
“Even though we put up the four scores and keep them scoreless, execution would probably the one point where we could improve a little bit more. We had some passing plays that were there and some running plays early we weren’t as clean as we wanted to be, just overall be a little bit crisper.”
The Colts had their first crack offensively. It became apparent quickly after three tries, grabbing yards against the quick aggressive Pioneer defense was going to take a monumental effort.
Tackles by Andrew Richardson, Max Streets- Pruitt and Nicholas Peisker set the tone right off the first snap.
With the turnover on downs, the Pioneers went to work. Quarterback Luke Krokos brought his offense to the line and proceeded to use his potent rushing attack, marching steadily towards the Colts endzone.
Runs by Hudson Doftert of 11 and 15-yards put the Pioneers up on their opening possession. Dofterts’ touchdown run and Streets-Pruitt conversion run put the Pioneers up 7-0 as the first quarter expired.
Peisker, John Sutter and Lucca Morandi again limited the Colts to just four plays, forcing a Turnover on Downs.
The Pioneers extended their lead on the next play from scrimmage. Streets-Pruitt dashed right then cut back left and went untouched from 21-yards out for the Pioneers next score.
The 14-0 lead would hold up into halftime with the Colts simply unable to sustain any rhythm or string together a series of downs, instead, they quickly went three and out again.
Brian Curran, Sutter and Zachary Salah forced another Colts stoppage on downs.
The Colts came out from halftime and played harder defensively. They limited the Pioneers to just 6 plays and relished in the stoppage. Their short-lived celebration came crashing to a halt when two plays later, the Pioneers’ John Sutter recovered a fumble.
Streets-Pruitt took the next handoff from Krokos and jetted 28-yards for the apparent touchdown but that came back.
After the penalty was assessed, Streets-Pruitt repeated his run only this time going 33-yards for the Pioneer touchdown and a 20-0 lead.,
“I feel like I was born to play football. I play multiple sports but football is the one for me,” said the elusive Streets-Pruitt.
“I think I see the field really well and I’m ready to make a cut or avoid a guy while I’m running. Coach says in practice when we run plays that he thinks we can score a touchdown on this play, so that’s what I was thinking each time, the whole game. It sure was fun.”
The Colts were not having any success moving the ball. The Pioneer defense was having its way with the visitors and nothing they tried seeming to work.
With three consecutive tackles, Pioneer’s Cole Baldrige single-handedly forced the Colts stop on downs.
Streets-Pruitt would put an exclamation to the game with his third touchdown of the day. His 21-yard run was as graceful and seemingly effortless as you’ll ever see. His ability to make the right cut or outmaneuver an opponent was true magic.
Upping the game score to 27-0, the Pioneers knew the game was in hand and coasted the rest of the final quarter to the shutout victory.
Defense was key in the win, several players contributed, it was a team effort for the win. Nicholas Peisker is one of the few veterans who played at Lightweight last season and knows what to expect.
He is a defensive leader and welcomes that.
“I give a lot of credit to my dad, he’s always helping me and telling me where to go along with all my coaches, they are the ones who teach me and all of us how to play defense well. I also find it super fun to go out there and Just have fun. I like being one of the leaders on this team.”
Peisker also felt they weren’t perfect and thought they could improve their containment and gang tackling.
Cole Baldridge was another standout defensively, his ability to constantly be around the ball or make a stop was quite noticeable. For a nine-year-old, his ability to shed a block and make a tackle is quite impressive.
“No one was really blocking me much, so the holes were wide open, and it was easy to make the tackle,” said Cole. “I see the field really well and pick up the holes that are open, so I fire off the line and get in the backfield. Defense is my favorite thing. I can do it every game, its part of my DNA.”
The Fifth Quarter play also provided some big plays and great defense. Among the standouts was Jase Enstrom.
Enstrom is one of the first-year players to the level, but he is a talented runner. He broke off a 32-yard touchdown run and made it look easy.
“There was someone that blocked the cornerback on my run, not sure I would have scored if he hadn’t made that block for me, that’s a good teammate. I think our team is gonna do really good. Our record last year including Wednesday night was 17-1, so I think we will be pretty good still.
Others standing out during the Fifth Quarter were quarterback Bennett Brown, Caden Kolodziej, Scott Gumienny, Vinnie Spizzirri, Noah Cordoba and Jude Morrer.
“Fifth Quarter guys impressed us top to bottom,” said Krokos, “A lot of them are new, first year players, we have ten on the team, all of them played in the Fifth Quarter. We put one score in, we were able to move the ball down the field and almost scored again, we got everyone one involved, they all did their jobs on the defensive end and moved the ball offensively, they did very good.”
Also doing their best in their win were Dominic Lach, Kristian Willis, Anthony Baniewicz, Blake Shuler, Vinny Ficaro, Luke Tonra, Carter Erwin, Carter Peluso, Dylan Ahmer, Karam Olyyan, Nicholas Mase, Christian Paulson, Avery Vermilyea, Cody Godlewski, Nicholas Dertz, Yousef Yasin, Nick Pomonis, James Okrasinski, Sam Horeluk, Collin Valan, Muhammad Kassem, Gavin Connors, Michael Ordman III, Michael Galivan, Nathan Campos, Rayder Slabenak and Owen Garrity.
Cheering on the Lightweights were the Lightweight Pioneer Cheerleaders. They kept the fans in the game as usual and performed at halftime. They include Isabella Cartolano, Madison Davis, Eleanor Dorigan, Kaylee Gaj, Paulina Goryl, Madison Hedger, Quinn Heinze, Margot and Vera Joda, Adaline Johnson, Gemma Laniosz, Brielle Lenzen, Brooklyn Loman, Lily Maday, Santina Mannino, Molly McGeever, Gabriela Cabela, Emily Okrasinski. Kara O’Meara, Ayya Ramadani, Meryn Rucinski, Sydney Scharpf, Avery Seliga, Peyton Tomasik, Molly Utz and Alivia Zawanda.
