Berkley pushes towin over Troy Athens, 22-20
Domzalski’s 2-point run pushes Berkley towin over Troy Athens, 4-0 start
TROY » To start off a season 4- 0, a team might need a brokenplay or two to go their way.
Berkley was able to defeat Troy Athens, 22-20 on Friday, to improve to 4- 0 in part thanks to a broken play on an extra point.
The Bears’ Jake Domzalski ran in a 3-yard touchdown with 2:06 left in the third quarter and then was the holder on the extra point when he mishandled the snap. But Domzalski didn’t panic, he simply picked up the ball and the ran in for the 2-point conversion to put his team up 15-14.
The two points proved to be the deciding factor in the victory.
“The snap, I don’t knowwhat happened, it just went right through my hands,” Domzalski said. “I just picked it up and ran it. Their defense was a little slow getting to me, so I just ran it in and got the 2-point conversion.”
The Bears have now doubled their win total from last year when they went 2-7, and are two wins away from a perfect regular season in the shortened sixgame season.
“It feels amazing,” Domzalski said of being 4- 0. “I knew we could do it. Compared to last year, this is just insane. Last year, we wouldn’t have won this game. We would have gave up when it was 7- 0. But this year we came back when we were down 14- 0. It’s just whole different program than last year.
“People are more focused this year and people actually care. Last year, all the students at our school assumed we were going to be terrible. We had enough of that and we’re showing them the program is back.”
Berkley’s defense was able to force several key turnovers in the win and helped seal the victory with a key stop on Troy Athens’ 2-point conversion try with 5:08 left in the game.
“Going into the week we talked about the scheme and everything,” Berkley coach Sean Shields said. “I told the kids the way we have it set up, they’re going to get some 50- 50 balls on us like they did on their last touchdown, but the kids stepped it up. They didn’t hang their heads and came up huge. Cody Rigley came up huge, shutting down their run game. I’m super proud of our defense, they way they stepped up.”
Berkley’s Ian Domzalski had two rushing touchdowns with the first coming with 9.9 seconds left in the second quarter to give Berkley its first points of the game.
Domzalski added a 1-yard touchdown run with 6:54 left in the fourth quarter to put the Bears up 22-14.
Domzalski started the game at quarterback, but moved over to running back in the second half after injuring his hand.
“Hewas running the ball hard and just didn’t want to come out,” Shields said. “But we had him try to throw at half time and it just wasn’t there. So we moved
him over to running back and brought in Zach (Maurice). Zach started some for us last year and he’s shown that he’s really grown. Some of the throws he made were big for us. He took charge, making sure we were getting the snaps and handoffs going right, keeping everyone calm in the huddle. Zach stepped up in a huge way and we might have to call his number again later in the season.”
Troy Athens got off to 14-0 lead when Nate Hazen found Grant Vande Kerkhoff for a 15-yard touchdown with 4:32 left in the second quarter and then Waides Ashmon ran in a 3-yard touchdown with 46.4 seconds left in the second quarter.
But the Bears were able to cut the lead to seven at halftime when Ian Domzalski scored his first touchdown of the game less than 40 seconds later.
Jake Domzalski’s touchdown and 2-point conversion put the Bears up 15-14 before Ian Domzalski’s second touchdown made it 2214.
The Red Hawks were in a position to tie it after Hazen found Kyree Harper for a 54-yard touchdown pass with 5:08 left, but the Bears defense held up on the 2-point conversion try.
Troy Athens falls to 1-3 with the loss and has lost its three games by a combined 15 points.
“I told the seniors I was proud of them, this is their last home game,” Troy Athens coach Billy Keenist Jr. said. “We just left toomany points on the field. The first quarter we took it all the way down and fumble. We had a couple other shots but we didn’t capitalize on them. It’s frustrating, but Berkley did a really nice job. They got a good team. I’m proud of my kids, the way battled. Just when you play good teams, you can’t leave points on the field and that’ s what we did tonight.
“We’ll be fine. We got a bye next week so we’re going to take that week and get healthy and get better. We got Troy in two weeks. But we’ll be fine. This has kind of been our deal all year, a lot of tight ball games, but just couldn’t get over the hump.”