jtuscano@observer-reporter.com
The game won't earn Washington & Jefferson College's football team any style points.
But style points don't win football games.
Touchdowns do and the Presidents, on this muggy Saturday evening, had more than Geneva in the season-opener and came away with a 28-20 victory.
The Presidents made a season's worth of mistakes in this game, but none proved fatal. Any number of them could have, especially a fourth-and-one call at the Geneva 8-yard line with 6:31 to play. W&J led 28-13 at the time and a field goal would have put the Presidents up by three scores. But head coach Mike Sirianni went for it and Geneva stopped them.
"I told the kids that if you bail me out (for the fourth-down call), I'll bail you out," Sirianni said. "We should have kicked the field goal there. We made a lot of mistakes, including the way I handled the game."
Passing on the field goal allowed Geneva a chance to get back in the game and the Golden Tornadoes nearly did. After driving 92 yards on 16 plays after the fourth-down stop, Geneva drove back down the field.
With just under 30 seconds left, quarterback Bobby Bondi found Brian Dvorsak behind W&J's secondary. His pass was perfect and hit Dvorsak two steps into the end zone. But Dvorsak simply dropped it.
"Our kids finished strong," said Geneva coach Geno DeMarco. "We just fell a little short. They had every opportunity to pack it in but they showed what they are made of."
W&J committed 14 penalties for 89 yards, mostly on illegal procedure calls that stymied the offense.
"It was our first game and I knew we were going to have penalties," said Sirianni. "But those are things we can fix."
The Presidents depended on the veterans on offense to break the malaise, and that's what quarterback Bobby Swallow, tailback Kevin Mathews and wide receiver Tom McCafferty did. The trio was responsible for all 28 points.
Swallow, whose brother Ben was a quarterback at Geneva, completed 16 of 25 passes for 255 yards and four touchdowns. He hit McCafferty twice for touchdowns, one from 11 yards that gave W&J a 21-7 lead and the second that came with 11:41 to play in the third quarter that made it 28-13.
"I'd like to think (the coaches) have confidence in us," said McCafferty, who had five catches for 63 yards. "I want them to think that way about me."
Mathews had a 79-yard catch-and-run in the second quarter that gave W&J a 14-7 lead. Mathews had 114 yards rushing on 16 carries and 195 total yards.
W&J held a 21-13 lead in a mistake-filled first half. The two teams combined for 15 penalties, including six illegal procedure calls against the Presidents.
When they managed to run a play without a flag, W&J fared pretty well, building a 21-7 edge before Geneva converted a poor punt by Zach Zebrasky into a late score to cut the lead to 21-13.
"That gave us a little momentum," DeMarco said.
Bondi gave Geneva a 7-0 lead with a one-yard quarterback sneak four minutes in. Swallow tied the game when he hit Luke Espy with a four-yard pass on the next possession.
Mathews then gave W&J some breathing room with his scintillating run with a short screen pass toward the left sideline. Geneva appeared to hesitate on the play when one of its players jumped offside well before the snap but Mathews did a nice job of breaking a tackle along the sideline to get to the end zone.
"It was just a throw-back screen," said Mathews. "I got some great blocking. I was able to keep my balance and went on in."
On their next possession, the Presidents took 21-7 lead when Swallow hit McCafferty with a pretty fade pattern in the end zone midway through the second quarter.
Later in the quarter, Geneva took advantage of a seven-yard punt by Zebrasky to cut the lead to eight. Bondi found Scott Koenig from seven yards out for the score with just 20 seconds left in the half.