Gopie, WCA way too much for Gilbert/ NW

WINSTED — Waterbury Career Academy’s Jalen Gopie scored almost every time he touched the ball at Winsted’s Van Why Field Friday afternoon, leading the Spartans to a 62-21 wipeout of Gilbert/Northwestern in a delayed Thanksgiving rivalry game.

Gopie, a 6-foot-2 junior, ran for 341 yards on 13 carries and passed for another 49 yards, scoring five Spartan touchdowns in the game’s first quarter-anda-half on sprints of 60,

15, 62, 54 and

11 yards.

In WCA’s 34-point second quarter,

Gopie racked up 205 yards on a day when he was stopped just twice at the line of scrimmage.

“I’ve been lifting weights and working hard,” said the soft-spoken 197-pound star.

“His secret is he doesn’t know he’s a running back, he thinks he’s a linebacker,” joked WCA coach Pete Flammia. “He runs really, really hard. He’s a hard worker who doesn’t let his success go to his head.”

Gopie started what seemed like a one-man rout on the game’s first play from scrimmage, loping through a big hole for 60 yards, then running in the two-point conversion.

Still, on a cold day made for fumbles, the Spartan defense proved almost as good.

Gilbert/Northwestern had the ball for just three plays before Giovanni Rodrigues recovered a Yellowjacket fumble on the WCA 49-yard line.

This time, G/N’s defense held fast in four downs, but so did the Spartans.

Taking over at the G/N

46-yard-line, WCA ran 10 plays before springing Gopie again for the final 15 yards with seven seconds left in the first quarter.

The second quarter was the killer for Gilbert/Northwestern, starting with an interception by Spartan Xavior Rivera. Gopie turned it into another score on a 62-yard run.

A G/N fumble turned Gopie loose for another 54-yard TD.

Four G/N plays later, Gopie took a direct snap in the Spartans’ wildcat formation, fooling everyone on the defense with a 49-yard pass to tight end Darrell Coombs.

Gopie finished that job with an 11-yard scoring sprint.

The Spartan defense interrupted Gopie’s scoring streak with a 62-yard interception return by Langston Racine, bringing the score to 44-0 with 5:06 still to play in the first half.

Yellowjacket captain Zack Horvay-Mclellan stopped the bleeding with a 34-yard run and a final one-yard plunge putting G/N on the board, but Gopie ran for 28 yards, then 50 more yards for another touchdown.

G/N quarterback Chase Sanden connected with Seamus Megevna for a 38-yard touchdown just before the half.

At 50-13, everyone at Van Why Field was ready for a

running clock through the second half — leaving Gopie just enugh time for a 45-yard scoring run in the third quarter and a touchdown by each side in the fourth.

“This is what we wanted to do in the first two years (of the three-year rivalry series),” said Flammia. “We got beat up in the first game and it was close in the second.”

“They came to play and we didn’t,” said Gilbert/ Northwestern coach Scott Salius. “We’ve won two out of three (in this series). I hope they win the NVL next year. This is the team we want to play. We want to play good teams.”

WCA finished the season 5-5. G/N closed at 4-6.