Warriors top Ephrata, claim 10th straight Male Trophy

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Ephrata running back R.J. Barrett (44) hits the open field during Friday’s game vs. Warwick. (Photo by Stan Hall)

arwick was hoping that it wouldn’t have to unveil its new offensive wrinkle last Friday night.

After all, the Warriors had only looked at it briefly during the week prior to their game against Ephrata.

But with the Mounts having taken a 7-0 lead in the first quarter on a two-yard touchdown by run by senior quarterback Jerrad Malmer, and still within striking distance at 14-7 going into the break, their plans changed.

“We talked in the second half that if we thought this would be helpful, it was time to do it,” Warwick coach Bob Locker said.

Unarguably, the Warriors helped themselves by giving Ephrata a different look in which senior quarterback Colin Gibble lined up as a wideout with junior Tyler Trimarchi going under center.

While capitalizing on the athleticism of Gibble, who ran for three touchdowns, and its depth at the QB position, Warwick pulled away in the second half to a 30-7 win over the Mounts in both teams’ final non-league tune-up at War Memorial Field.

In addition to completing 2-of-6 passes for 87 yards and rushing for three scores, Gibble also hauled in four aerials totaling 55 yards, while Trimarchi was a perfect 7-of-7 for 85 yards, including a five-yard TD pass to Carter Forney. That was part of a big night for Forney, who finished with five receptions for 117 yards, and junior Will Mobley added a 44-yard field goal.

“(Colin) offered to go to wideout if he thought it would help us be a better football team,” Locker said. “I’ve got nothing but admiration. Everybody wants to grow up and be a quarterback, but he said, ‘Maybe we’d be a little better if I was a wideout.’ He’s a very good athlete, he’s fast, he runs good patterns, and he has good hands. I think it helped because we forced (Ephrata) to make some adjustments. He hurt them a little bit. They took an extra guy out of the box and then we ran the ball, then they put the guy back in the box and we were able to do some things.”

From Ephrata’s vantage point, it wasn’t helpful to have several dropped passes which cost them the opportunity to cut into the Warriors’ lead and make the outcome a little bit more interesting.

“They made plays when it counted and there were times we didn’t and that’s pretty much it,” Ephrata coach Scott Shelley said. “Had we caught the balls that we could have, or we should have, we’d have been right there. It could have very easily been a really good exciting game.”

In the end, the Warriors (1-2) captured its 10th straight George Male Trophy, which is annually presented to the winner of this back-yard rivalry. In the all-time series, Warwick improved its overall record to 42-38-6 over Ephrata (0-3).

“Winning for a 10th year is great, it’s good for the kids,” Locker said, “but I’ve got to be honest &tstr; winning the game was far more important than looking at how many times we have the trophy because we struggled last week (in a 51-14 loss to Garden Spot). We made some progress tonight. We’ll see where we go with it, but we did make some progress tonight.”

Shelley, too, felt like his squad made some progress in the losing cause.

“Our kids play their hearts out,” he said. “We have 30 of them and kids want to come out because they need a blow and it’s a matter of who do you put in there and things like that. They never complain, they keep fighting hard and good things are going to happen for them. It’s just a matter of hanging tough and getting after it. I thought offensively, we had guys open, I thought we ran the ball pretty well, which is something that hasn’t happened for a long time. So I think the line did a very good job. Defensively, we did much better. But they run out of gas, they really do, and we’re still looking for those combinations that are going to be shut down for us.”

Malmer ran for a team-high 64 yards on 14 carries to lead Ephrata. A big chunk of those came on the Mounts’ opening drive, and Malmer’s two-yard TD scamper with 3:29 left in the first quarter, combined with Caroline Stauffer’s PAT, put them in front 7-0.

“I thought he ran real hard, he did a nice job directing their offense,” Locker said. “The first drive, with an offense like that with a lot of motion, it’s hard to duplicate in practice during the week. So you frequently give up one touchdown until you figure it out a little bit.”

All the momentum was with Ephrata at that point, and it was building to a crescendo as Warwick faced third-and-13 from its own 24. But Gibble dropped back and found Forney streaking down the right sideline for a 64-yard hook-up.

It proved to be a turning point.

“If we had to punt from there, it’s a short field,” Locker said. “I give Ephrata a lot of credit. They played a good hard football game, they’re getting better &tstr;simple as that. You don’t want to be down 14-0 to anybody, and if it’s 14-0, all of a sudden they really believe that this game is something they can win. So it was a nice throw, it was a nice pattern by Forney.”

Three plays later, Gibble scored on a one-yard dive with :49.3 left in the quarter, and Mobley’s PAT pulled the Warriors even, 7-all.

For its next possession, Warwick got the ball in solid field position at its own 40. Gibble kept the drive alive with a three-yard gain on fourth down, and junior Ryan Deibler (12 carries, game-high 112 yards) ran seven times for 32 yards.

“(Deibler)’s healthy again, finally,” Locker said. “He’s been kinda dinged, so it was nice to have him back.”

Gibble’s second TD of the night, another one-yard burst, capped a 12-play drive which put the Warriors up 14-7, which is how it stayed at half.

“(Our guys) were still feeling good at halftime, they felt that they really had a good opportunity tonight and they did,” Shelley said. “As we told them after the game, this was not a missed opportunity &tstr; this was just understanding that when you get opportunities, you’ve got to finish. They haven’t had much experience in that and they’re getting there and I’m just proud of them as could be.”

Trimarchi took advantage of his opportunity on the Warriors’ first possession in the third quarter, completing passes of 18 and 10 yards to Gibble and added a seven-yard carry. Isaac Rissinger (9-85 rushing) chipped in with gains of 11 and 13 yards before Gibble, returning to the QB spot, scored on a one-yard run with 8:15 left in the period. The PAT missed, but Warwick led 20-7.

“(Tyler) throws a nice ball, and like I said, I’ve got three quarterbacks (including Taylor Lentz) who all do things relatively well,” Locker said. “Trimarchi is not as big as Gibble, but he still runs read and understands his read, he has a quick release and he’s athletic and it just puts Gibble in a position to make plays.”

The Mounts were making plays on their next series, and combined with a couple of Warwick penalties, they moved the ball to the WHS 19. On fourth down, Malmer lofted a nice pass into the end zone, but the ball was dropped, enabling the Warriors’ 20-7 lead to remain intact.

The missed opportunity loomed bigger when the Warriors responded by marching 72 yards in the other direction, highlighted by Deibler’s 54-yard run. A couple of penalties pushed them back, including a delay of game, but on the final play of the quarter, Mobley blasted a 44-yard field goal, easily clearing the crossbar, to extend Warwick’s lead to 23-7.

“Pretty cool, man,” Locker said of Mobley’s field goal. “I was thinking about not kicking it when we got the delay. He’s got a solid foot, he banged that thing. That was good from 50 and then some. He’s a good kicker. We’ve got him for two years, so we like that.”

Following a three-and-out by the Mounts, Trimarchi’s five-yard TD pass to Forney with just 7:51 remaining in the fourth, capping an eight-play, 54-yard drive, completed the scoring.

The Warriors will now look toward its Section One opener against Cedar Crest this Friday in Cornwall.

“We did some stuff to try to spread it out a little bit,” Locker said, “and it worked, so we were happy about that. We needed some positive momentum, so I hope it will work out for us. We’ve just got to build off of it a little bit.”

With the Mounts preparing to battle Northern Lebanon in their Section Three opener this Friday, Shelley and the Mounts are hoping to build off of last week’s game as well.

“We’re always building off of it and that’s what you have to do,” Shelley said. “They try their hardest and that’s all you can ask for them, but we just don’t have people that we can keep putting in and out (of the game) and resting. That’s just the way it is, but we know that the opportunities are going to continue to come and one of these days, it’s going to happen, and then they’ll know what it’s like and they’re going to take off. They’re going to fly.”

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