Bristol falls to New Church in return of high school sports
BRISTOL, PA. » Following six long months, an official high school athletic event finally returned to the greater-Trenton area on Friday afternoonwhen Bristol hosted the Academy of theNewChurch in football.
While it was kind of a surreal scene with more fans watching the game from outside the stadiumthanin, the bottom line is scholastic athletics are back.
As for thegame itself, Bristol cameup short in its opener by the score of 28-6, but keep inmind it was against a New Church team (2-0) that was playing its second game and has been a very strong programover the last four or so years.
“They are good, but it’s not an excuse,’’ said Bristol’s second-year coach Mike Ciot ti .“We need to cleanup some mistakeswemade.’’
Although the final scorewas not, it was a competitive game for much of the day with New Church holding a 7-0leadat thehalfand14-0advantage after three quarters.
But as well as Bristol’s defense played, it received very little help from an offense that had just three first downs in thefirst threequarters.
Furthermore, Bristol more or less handed New Church its first touchdownwhena high snap fromcenter allowedtheLions
to take over on the Bristol 6- yard line. The visitors then opened the scoring on a 4- yard shuttle pass from quarter back Pat McCabe to Nate Bradley.
The seven-point lead stood until midway through the third quarter when PatrickMcManus intercepted a tipped pass and returned it to the Bristol 9- yard line. Scoring the touchdown this time was Ryan G iv han, who race dun touched up the middle on a quarter back draw.
G iv han had entered the game when McCabe was injured running the ball inthe secondquarter, andas it turned out New Church may have benefited by the switch. By the time the game was over, G iv han also scored on two 11- yard keepers in the fourth quarter.
Trailing by the score of 21-0, Bristol did get some satisfaction on a 58- yard touch downrunaround right end by Elijah Alex andre early in the fourth quarter.
When a penalty then backed up ANC to itsown 10-yardlineonthe ensuing kickoff, it looked like Bristol just mightbe able toget back in the game.
Instead, Givhan threw a short pass toMcManus, who did the rest by racing82yards totheBristol 12-yard line. One play laterGivhan raced in for his third touchdown.
In addition to having trouble running the ball, Bristol completed just one pass andwas pickedoff twice. On the plus side, quarterback Shaquille Grimes showed nice moves running the ball andis sure tobe a force as the season goes along.
“It’s a luxury; wewant to be able to run the ball ,’’ replied Ciottiw hen asked about his team’s passing game. “We will just get back to work and come out and compete next week (against Pennington Prep).’’
As mentioned at the top, the fact high schools are now competing again is the biggest positive of all.
New Church (2-0) 7 0 7 14 - 28
Bristol (0-1) 0 0 0 6 - 6
NC-Bradley 4 pass from McCabe (Melvin kick) NC-Givhan 9 run (Melvin kick)
ND-Givhan 11 run (Melvin kick) B-Alexandre 58 yard run (kick failed) NC-Givhan 11 run (McCabe kick)