By Rob Potter
GRAHAMSVILLE — September 21, 2010 — Tri-Valley Central School celebrated its 2010 Homecoming on Saturday afternoon.
But the celebration was spoiled a bit as the visiting John S. Burke Catholic High School Eagles shut- out the T-V Bears, 28-0, in Saturday afternoon’s non-league football game.
After stopping T-V (0-3) on its first drive, Burke drove 79 yards in 15 plays for its first touchdown. On fourth-and-1, Dan Shannon dove into the end zone on a quarterback keeper to give the Eagles a 6-0 lead.
With 4:44 remaining in the second quarter, Burke’s Matt Cino ran up the middle for a 3-yard touchdown. Shannon then ran for the two-point conversion to give Burke a 14-0 advantage.
In the third quarter, the Eagles forced T-V to punt and took over possession of the ball at the Bears’ 44-yard line. A holding penalty on first down moved Burke back 10 yards. But two plays later, Shannon connected with Tom Sullivan on a 55-yard TD pass. Andrew Nutt then kicked the extra point to push the Eagles’ lead to 21-0.
Late in the third quarter, the Burke defense again forced the Bears to punt and took over possession in T-V territory. Steve Tomaszewski capped a four-play drive with a 10-yard touchdown run. Nutt booted the ball through the uprights on the PAT kick to give the Eagles a 28-0 lead.
T-V advanced the ball into the Burke half of the field on its next possession. But the drive ended when Tomaszewski intercepted a pass at his own 33-yard line.
Tomaszewski led the Burke rushing attack with 19 carries for 93 yards. Cino had 68 yards on 13 carries and Mark McNeilly ran seven times for 35 yards.
Shannon completed 2 of 8 passes for 66 yards. Sullivan caught both of those passes.
“We have worked very hard to revamp our offense for this season,” Burke Coach Ed VanCuren said. “The past two or three seasons, we were running the ball 95 percent of the time. We wanted to pass the ball more, which opens up our running game.”
“We were able to move the ball well today,” he added.
Joe Mickelson and Brendan Tierney paced the T-V offense. Mickelson rushed 11 times for 20 yards and caught three passes for 51 yards, while Tierney had five carries for 11 yards.
Tierney was the Bears’ top defender with 11 solo tackles and three assisted tackles. Ryan Zayas had an interception for T-V.
“Burke is a strong, physical team,” T-V Coach John Rusin said. “They were able to use their strength and they eventually wore us down.”
Although the Bears are still looking for their first win of the season, Rusin is seeing some positives.
“We are making strides,” he said. “I know the players don’t want to hear that right now because they’re disappointed, but we are making strides and improving. There was no quit in our guys today. We are going to keep working hard.
“Two weeks from now, we are going to look back at this game as the turning point of our season,” Rusin added. “This team can still have a very good season.”
Note: At part of the Homecoming festivities, the T-V senior football players and cheerleaders presented roses to their parents, siblings and friends at halftime.
The senior players are Nick Corigliano, Peter DiMilia, Brian Edwards, Matt Huebsch, Richard Johnson, Matt March, Brent Mc-Keon and Tyler Ter Bush.
The senior cheerleaders are Annaliese Castro, Samantha Davis and Allyson Delaney.