Saturday, November 1, 2008

The Shoes fit for RPI

It wasn't pretty, but RPI made it three in a row on Saturday, defeating Union 25-12 and retaining the Dutchman Shoes Trophy.

“There’s nothing better than the feeling of winning the Shoes,” sophomore receiver Patrick McCarthy said.

The Engineers are now 7-0 and have only two games remaining.

McCarthy's big return is what set up RPI's comeback after they feel behind 12-7 on a 65-yard touchdown run by Chris Coney.

“We needed something,” RPI coach Joe King said. “We needed a jumpstart, now we’re trailing, they just had a 70-yard run and we hadn’t done too much offensively.”

Who would have thought that 6-foot-2, 250-pound senior defensive lineman James McLaughlin would have a catch before senior wide receiver Eren Savasli.

McLaughlin and Savasli both caught touchdown passes from senior quarterback Jimmy Robertson to put the Engineers up for good.

“I’m happy for (McLaughlin) because he’s been working hard all year and wanting coach to call his number,” Robertson said.

Savasli averages more than seven catches a game, but his one on Saturday was deadly; a 55-yard touchdown strike.

“You know he’s going to get one of those,” McCarthy said. “He’s a big playmaker and you give him an opportunity, he’s going to take it.”

“(Savasli) didn’t have a lot of opportunities today,” King said. “They really did a good job taking him out and we went to some other kids a little bit.”

While RPI's offense didn't play their best, their defense was up to the challenge.

I was also impressed Union's defense played as well as they did.

“I don’t know if we came out flat,” McCarthy said. “They played really well on defense.”

Coney finished with 128 yards, but was limited except for the big touchdown run.

“I wish we could have given it to him more,” Union coach John Audino said. “We got behind a little bit in the second half and obviously, with seven minutes to go in the game, it’s difficult to give your bread-and-butter guy the rock.”

Here's what some of the particpants had to say after the game....

“Between the misplays and the turnovers, it gives a good team an opportunity to get some easy scores and that’s what happened,” Audino said.

“I played all right, but not to the best of my ability,” Coney said. “There are no moral victories.”

“They made some plays on defense in the first half,” Robertson said. “They were really stopping us, shutting us down and taking away those big plays we’ve had all year. In the second half, Coach made a couple good calls and we just executed.”

“That’s what this team is all about,” Savasli said. “We have playmakers and we expect everyone to go out there and make plays.”

RPI has taken it one game at a time and next week is huge when they take on Hobart in what almost becomes a Liberty League championship game.

“We kept everything exactly the same as far as meetings and times, there was nothing special (this week) and it’ll be the same thing next week,” King said.

“We treated this game just like a playoff game and that’s what we have to do next week,” Robertson said.

“All week we’re going to come focused and prepare for that," Savasli said. "We know we have two more steps to attain our preseason goal of going undefeated. Being the last game on ’86 (Field) there is going to be a lot of emotion and everybody is going to have to bring their ‘A’ game to come out with the victory against Hobart.”

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1 Comments:

Blogger Louie Monkey-Pest said...

Ouch. I was pulling for Union.

November 1, 2008 at 11:10 PM 

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