Wagner 60 Port Richmond 8
Wagner High School head coach Al Paturzo said there were no lessons to be learned from his team’s loss at home to Curtis last week.
He was wrong. In fact, there were two lessons and they converged on a helpless Port Richmond squad. The first was learned by his team: If you aren’t mentally prepared to play, you will lose. The second was learned by Port Richmond yesterday: If Wagner loses a home game, don’t be its next opponent.
Port Richmond (3-3, 2-3 in the PSAL) found that out the hard way, coming up on the short end of a 60-8 annihilation at the hands of the Falcons (5-1, 4-1).
“Last week, we were flat,” Wagner QB Joe Yoffredo said. “Now we know we can’t slip up.”
The Falcons did anything but slip yesterday, but they did plenty of it in the loss to Curtis. Paturzo attributed much of the difference to the weather.
“Today we had a nice, dry [artificial] turf,” Paturzo said. “When you have a scat back like we do, the dry turf helps a lot.”
Wagner RB Ramael Myers responded extremely well following a disappointing performance a week ago. He used strong running to get into the secondary and then hard cuts to pile up yardage.
Myers ran the ball 16 times for 171 yards and three touchdowns as the Falcons ran all over the Red Raiders.
“We were playing with a little bit of revenge,” said Myers, who used nifty moves throughout the afternoon to confound Port Richmond’s defenders. “We had to show that we put the Curtis game behind us.”
Wagner did that with tremendous authority, much to the surprise of its head coach.
“I’m shocked by how the guys played,” Paturzo said. “All week long we were trying to get the guys to get excited and nothing happened. They stayed quiet and calm. They got all their emotion out today. I guess they were saving it up.”
The Falcons, as the score would indicate, dominated every facet of the game. Only a defensive lapse at the end of the first half allowed Port Richmond QB Sean Dasaro to connect with Fabio Millazo for the team’s only score. By halftime, Wagner led 22-8 and knew it wasn’t done. It helped that Port Richmond turned the ball over four times after halftime.
“Today proved that one loss doesn’t ruin a season,” said Wagner’s Sean Bennett, who scored on a pass reception, a punt return and an interception return. “We still have a lot of games to play.”
This apparent new attitude doesn’t bode well for the rest of the PSAL. The Falcons were dangerous enough even before they added this new, intense approach.
“This is a veteran team,” Paturzo said. “They should know how to win. But we played with a relentlessness that we hadn’t before. Hopefully, that continues.”