EASY PEASY
RPI handles Anna Maria 38-0 as they head into conference play next week with Rochester.
TROY, NY >> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute picked up the 38-0 win over Anna Maria College Saturday afternoon at ECAV Stadium to improve to 3-1 this season as they enter into Liberty League competition next week.
“Every single week it is about us. It is about how we can execute, how we can play,” said RPI Head Coach Ralph Isernia. “It’s 0-0 with one to go every single week. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is everyone is going to bring their best, we know that.”
Isernia was able to utilize his bench in a meaningful way, with a lot of inexperienced players getting some downs in the win. Despite the comfortable cushion the Engineers had, Isernia wished for more out of the lower depth chart guys.
“It’s good to get a look at a lot of guys,” said Isernia. “I wish the execution would be a little crisper with those guys in the game than what we saw, especially there towards the end. There’s a reason why we have guys that start and we have backups, and then there is guys that are a little bit down line, but it was good to have a lot of guys play and get some film on them.”
Anna Maria Football is in just
its third year of competition. Every team needs to start somewhere.
“I think coach is doing it the right way. It is through high school recruitment and development of talent and getting guys in the program and doing things the right way,” said Isernia on Anna Maria. “Sometimes you have to go through that fire before you can reap the rewards. He’s a good head coach and I have no doubt they will be a force pretty soon.”
RPI took the game early and took it in a big way with a commanding 28-0 lead out of the first quarter.
Quarterback George Marinopoulos tossed two of his three touchdown passes in the quarter. First a 31 yard pass to Vinne McDonald, and then a 30 yard pass to Peter Lombardi.
Marinopoulos finished with three touchdowns and 91 yards on six completions.
In the first quarter, a blocked punt led to another touchdown. Delano Munoz Whatts recovered the blocked punt by Joe Deputla for the third touchdown of the game, signaling to RPI they were in the drivers seat from the get go.
“I think with the blocked punt and the field position, it was 28-0 in the first quarter, we wanted to make sure we got a lot of guys in and kept guys healthy,” said Isernia. “You are always hoping to get into a situation to give different guys some reps, it’s just when you can pull the plug.”
In the second quarter, Sanjay Krishnan nailed a 33 yard field goal to make the score 31-0 early before McDonald caught his second touchdown of the day from Marinopoulos for the last score of the day for either team.
In a game where RPI led early with chances coming on their very first play of the game, a specific emphasis was made on sticking to the standard RPI has set for themselves.