RPI handles Rochester 38-0 for first Liberty League win of season
TROY, NY >> RPI opened Saturday’s matchup with the University of Rochester another high scoring first half, similarly to what they had done last week against Anna Maria College.
“Rochester is a much better team than what we had played against last week and our guys came out and executed and came out and had a chance to score on turnovers, which has been our M.O.” said RPI Head Coach Ralph Isernia. “Defense pitching another shut out was nice.”
RPI walked away with the 38-0 win for the second week in a row, this time over Rochester Saturday. Now 4-1, RPI posted a 24 point first half with quarterback George Marinopoulos completing three touchdown passes in that half alone.
Rochester falls to 0-5 with the loss.
Marinopoulos finished 25/37 for 242 yards and four touchdowns in the win. Despite the effort, Marinopoulos blamed himself for the slow RPI start.
“I thought in the first quarter I wasn’t really playing my game,” said Marinopoulos. “Everyone else on the field was doing their job and I have to start playing, I
have to play the game. All ten other guys were doing their jobs the whole game, I can’t talk enough about those guys up front.”
“George is a perfectionist. If we throw the ball 30 times he expects to complete it thirty times,” said Isernia. “I thought he played pretty well and I also think he can play better.”
Marinopoulos would not have been able to light up the passing game if it wasn’t for the RPI defense which totaled five turnovers, including three picks, in the win.
“Those guys played lights out today,” said Marinopoulos. “The last two weeks those guys have been phenomenal and let us have the ball. It is a big momentum shift when we get a turnover, so we are looking for them to do that every game.”
“Our defensive line getting their hands up and getting in the passing lane and you saw a lot of deflected and tipped balls by the defensive line,” said Isernia on how the defense got the five turnovers. “We are constantly preaching ‘H.O.B’ in practice which is ‘hands on ball.’ The more times you can get your hand on the football, whether you are raking it free, deflecting it, knocking it down, the more times you can get your hands on the ball, the more chances you get of getting the ball.”
The RPI offense did in fact have a slow start Saturday afternoon. After the first quarter, Rochester and RPI were knotted at zero and it looked to be that the Engineers and Yellowjackets would play to a tight affair.
“We weren’t executing in that first quarter,” said Marinopoulos. “The second quarter we started executing our stuff and moving the ball well.”
That was until RPI rattled off 24 points in the first half to enter the halftime with a 24-0 lead.
Nick Smith finished with three catches for 65 yards and scored the first touchdown of the game on a diving catch in the corner of the endzone. The 24-yard pass by Marinopoulos was right on the money to one of his most athletic receivers.
Smith had made an earlier catch for the last play of the first quarter to set up the scoring touch. Marinopoulos hit Smith on his back shoulder and falling back, Smith was able to corral the ball in with one hand.
Vinne McDonald scored the second touchdown on the game on a 21-yard pass by Marinopoulos nearly four minutes later. Five minutes later Sanjay Krishnan kicked a strike for a 31yard field goal.
In the dying seconds of the half, RPI marched down the field and found themselves in the red zone with 15 seconds on the clock. A few dropped passes out of the wildcat forced RPI to call a time out, which subsequently led to Rochester calling their last two touchdowns in a row as both times tried to match up to execute a stop, or score, in the final seconds of the half.
“We all just wanted to play, but that’s how football is sometimes,” said Marinopoulos.
RPI ended up winning the chess match as Marinopoulos hit Spencer Merkel on a three-yard out that gave the Engineers a comfortable cushion.