By Ed Muniz- Photos by Renee Kasper
**Additional Photos are Available for Purchase at https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p532005483 **
Resilience. Determination. Guts. And bucket loads of talent. All crucial traits seen in today’s best sports teams.
Stratospheric rises to the top are equally accompanied by hiccups and occasional downward spirals. But as the saying goes, ‘A setback is just a setup for a comeback’.
And you know everyone loves a Comeback.
The Lightweight Pioneers were unscathed in their first five victories. They had a close call before, some adversity, but in the end, resilience and stamina was key, thus gaining a victory.
On September 23, the Pioneers would face a foe in the Homer Stallions who much like them had also managed to remain unbeaten.
The Stallions’ advantage was their home field among the festivities of the home crowd and the hoopla of Homecoming.
The Clash of unbeatens was center stage with much at stake. After being stunned by two quick scores, the Pioneers trailed by double-digits for the first time all season.
Pioneers’ fans were not accustomed to seeing this team scorched as it just was. The stunned silence was equally loud.
The only plus for the Pioneers and their fans was that there was nearly three whole quarters to play.
Showing the heart of a Champion with no panic, the Pioneers would go on and dominate the remainder of the game and score 28 unanswered points to prevail and remain unbeaten at 6-0 and atop the standing of the Lightweight division with the 28-14 win.
“They were loading everything in the box on us, obviously we start off conservative, our defense, we made some adjustments after that,” said Head Coach Al Krokos. “Once we stopped them, we opened it up, the passing game, we were able to put the pressure on them and our defense just fed off of that, so that was great.”
The Pioneers passing game really showed a weakness in the Homer defense. Quarterback Luke Krokos connected with Hudson Doftert twice and once with Max Streets-Pruitt on three touchdown passes.
Krokos also completed other passes that picked up several yards.
The Homer defense was shell-shocked after that and had the Stallions with nearly nothing left the remainder of the game.
“We practice those plays at practice a lot, so we know what to do,” said Quarterback Luke Krokos. “Everybody knows how to run their route and I know how to throw it. When we scored the first touchdown, everybody got all excited and pumped up, our defense was working great, and we got the ball back and then scored again.”
“I think our passing surprised them, they couldn’t stop us, they tried but they couldn’t. We will get better by keep practicing; it works.”
An early interception by Zackary Salah didn’t turn into points for the Pioneers. After a punt from their own 7-yardline, the Pioneer defense gave up the first score.
A 20-yard run put the Stallions up quickly, 6-0
The Pioneers offense struggled on their next series going four plays and out at midfield.
Just 23-seconds into the second quarter, the Stallions improved their lead scoring on a 22-yard pass play. Adding the kick-after, the Pioneers trailed 14-0.
The Pioneers went to the air on their next play.
Krokos saw Doftert looping beyond the corner and laid a perfect soft pass that his runningback caught in stride and took 55-yards for the Pioneers opening touchdown. With kicker’ Andrew Richardsons’ converted kick-after; the lead was down to 14-8.
Having seized the momentum, the Pioneer defense stepped up. Linebacker Nicholas Peisker was in a frenzy and that meant bad news for the Stallions.
A 9-yard sack by Peisker quickly had the Stallions punting.
One play later, the Pioneers struck again via the pass.
Krokos again found and open Streets-Pruitt on the far side and hit him in stride, cradling the pass and going 30-yards for the touchdown. With the score, the Pioneers had even the game at 14-14.
Things got harder for the Stallion offense. They seemed out of sync and couldn’t put positive plays together. It didn’t help that Peisker, Dylan Ahmer, Street-Pruitt and Lucca Morandi were now amped up, making hard tackles.
After the Stallions punt, the Pioneers took the lead which was theirs for the remainder of the game.
Krokos found Streets-Pruitt for 10-yards as time was nearly elapsing in the first half. Krokos spiked the ball to stop the clock with just 4-seconds left.
The last play of the half saw Krokos again drop back and lay another perfect pass into the hands of Doftert who finished the pass completion with no time left on the clock in the endzone for the 47-yard touchdown. Richardson converted the kick and gave the Pioneers a 22-14 lead at half.
Momentum was firmly on the visitor’s side. You could see they were itching to get back on the field, while the home team looked almost defeated as they came out to start the second half.
After being obliterated by the pass, the Stallions were leery of another, so what do the Pioneers do, they go to the run with Ahmer weaving his way through the initial defensive line and hitting an opening that took him 54-yards into the endzone for the touchdown.
The 28-14 lead seemed insurmountable the way the Pioneers defense was now playing. Everything the Stallions tried was countered.
The Pioneers allowed some controllable gains but were never threatened. The tackling of Peisker became routine as the game went on. His five tackles in the Stallions opening series was a dominant display of talent.
“I just think I’m really good at reading a play,” said the defensive talented Peisker. “I watch film and I see what they are doing and what they are going to do; I can see what the offense is doing and sometimes read the play and be right there to make the tackle.”
“We knew when we went down this game wasn’t over, we knew we needed to step it up and play with our hearts in it and a mentality to give it all we got the rest of the game and it really help us. The whole D-Line was great today and so were our ends. Especially at the end, all that pressure from our D-line led to two picks to seal the win.”
Also adding tackles were Jude Morrar, Owen Garrity and Cole Baldridge.
Entering the final quarter, the Pioneers had to punt when they were unable to convert on fourth down on the ensuing series.
The Pioneer defense was glad to step in and continue its dominance and they did just that even coming up with a turnover when the Stallions tried going to the pass. Doftert snagged an errant Stallion pass and returned it 22-yards.
Again, unable to move the ball much, the Pioneers punted as time kept ticking away.
Morandi grabbed a quarterback sack that lost 5 yards on the Stallions first try. That was soon followed by another interception, this time by Owen Garrity who managed to return it 11-yards.
Krokos would take a knee to end the game and keep the Pioneers unbeaten, handing the Stallions their first defeat of the year.
Fifth Quarter Action saw the Pioneers struggle defensively but still giving their all. Among those making tackles were Jase Enstrom, Cody Godlewski Nick Pomonis and a couple by Christian Paulson.
Offensively, runs by Caden Kolodziej, Noah Cordoba and Bennet Brown helped but the work of Anthony Baniewicz highlighted the Pioneers offense. He had a long zig-zag run of 24-yards and also caught a pass from Kolodziej that he scored a touchdown on from 29-yards out.
“I just tried to catch the ball, I thought he was going to tip it, but he was just a smidge too short and then I caught it and kept on running,” said Baniewicz. “I like weaving through the defense, it’s my style of running. Its hard stiffing guys when they go for my legs, that’s the hardest about how I run. I’m glad we scored at least once.”
Several other Pioneers gave their all at Homer. They were Kristian Willis, Blake Schuler, Vinny Ficaro, Luke Tonra, Vince Spizzirri, Carter Erwin, Carter Peluso, John Sutter, Karam Olyyan, Nicholas Mase, Gavin Connors, Scott Gumienny, Nicholas Dertz, Yousef Yasin, Sam Okrasinski, Dominic Lach, Collin Valan, Muhammad Kassem, Avery Vermilyea, Michael Ordman III, Michael Galivan, Nathan Campos, Rayder Slabenak and Brian Curran.
Cheering on the team and entertaining the crowd at halftime were the Lightweight Pioneer Cheerleaders which included Gabriela Cabela, Isabella Cartolano, Madison Davis, Eleanor Dorigan, Kaylee Gaj, Paulina Goryl, Madison Hedger, Quinn Heinze, Margot Joda, Vera Joda, Adaline Johnson, Gemma Laniosz, Brielle Lenzen, Brooklyn Loman, Lily Maday, Santina Mannino, Molly McGeever, Emily Okrasinski, Kara O’Meara, Ayya Ramadani, Meryn Rucinski, Sydney Scharpf, Avery Seliga, Peyton Tomasik, Molly Utz and Alivia Zawada.