By Rob Potter
GRAHAMSVILLE — The Ellenville Blue Devils took the lead less than three minutes into Saturday afternoon’s Section IX Class C football game against the host Tri-Valley Bears.
Linebacker Amiel Maerling recovered a fumble to give the Blue Devils possession at the T-V 16. Three plays later, Doug Lewis ran for a 10-yard touchdown to give Ellenville (2-0, 1-0 Class C) a 6-0 advantage with 9:11 left in the first quarter.
The Blue Devils kept adding to that lead as the game progressed and registered a 45-7 victory.
Maerling ran for a 3-yard TD later in the first quarter to make it a 12-0 game.
In the second quarter, Lewis ran for two touchdowns (11 yards and 22 yards) and quarterback Robert Borriello threw a 60-yard TD pass to Jose Aldarondo to extend the Ellenville lead to 31-0.
T-V (0-2, 0-1 Class C) scored its only points of the game with 3:30 left in the second quarter. Junior quarterback Peter DiMilia threw a pass to senior wide receiver Bobby Beale, who raced down the field for a 54-yard touchdown. Ignacio Rios then kicked the extra point to make the score 31-7.
After a scoreless third quarter, Ellenville scored twice in the fourth quarter. With 10:42 left, Ameer Maxwell ran for a 53-yard touchdown. With 1:52 left, Michael Wernick ran for a 16-yard TD.
Lewis rushed for a team-high 105 yards on 18 carries, while Maxwell had 54 yards on nine carries.
Borriello completed 6-of-14 passes for 134 yards.
Maerling led the Blue Devils’ defense with 11 tackles.
Wernick and Aldarondo had nine tackles and eight tackles, respectively, and Maxwell had an interception.
“We want to run the ball, but we also tried some different things today,” Ellenville Coach Tony Borriello said. “We play our best when we are running the ball.”
While his team posted a 38-point victory, Borriello noted that the game was much closer than that.
“We told our guys coming in not to think this game was going to be a walkover,” he said. “Tri-Valley played great and they worked very hard. I have a lot of respect for [Coach] John Rusin and he does a great job with his players. The score really doesn’t show how well they played.”
Matt Bogorad led the Bears with 47 rushing yards on 16 carries.
Senior Ross Bonnell paced the Bears’ defense with 12 tackles. Brendan Tierney and DiMilia added 11 tackles and 10 tackles, respectively.
Frank Delozier recovered a fumble for T-V.
“Ellenville has a very good team,” T-V Coach John Rusin said. “They’re very big and they’re very physical.
“I’m proud of the way our guys played,” he added. “We fought hard the whole game and I felt we made the Ellenville players really earn everything they got. There was a big improvement between how we played last week against Eldred and how we played today.”