Geneva fumbles away opener
Muddy, sloppy, natural grass Burgess Field or shiny new field turf Burgess Field, one thing remains the same.
Fumble the ball more than your opponent, you’re probably going to lose.
Fumble the ball as much as Geneva did Friday night in the season opener against Oswego and you’ll bring back memories of the early part of Rob Wicinski’s tenure when the Vikings struggled to win a game.
Oswego put a major damper on what had promised to be a magical night at Geneva. With a buzz in the air and the new field turf in place looking pristine in front of a huge crowd, Geneva couldn’t stop laying the football on that new carpet.
On a stretch of six first-half possessions, the Vikings fumbled the ball away five times and the other time snapped the ball over punter Daniel Santacaterina’s head that resulted in a 20-yard loss and a turnover on downs.
Oswego (1-0) made Geneva pay time and again, scoring touchdowns on all six of those possessions to post 47 unanswered points and turn an early 7-0 deficit into a stunning 47-7 halftime lead. Geneva put two touchdowns on the board in the second half but it was much too little much too late in a 47-20 loss.
“Oswego, I don’t know how well they are going to do but it doesn’t matter who comes into the house, you lay the ball on the ground six times, the Tri-City Chargers could come in (and win),” Geneva coach Rob Wicinski said.
Geneva (0-1) was fighting itself all night. Twice the Vikings fumbled an Oswego kickoff setting the Panthers up with short fields.
Two other times Oswego safety Jamaal Richardson scooped up a Geneva fumble and returned it for Oswego touchdowns including a 98-yard return on the final play of the first half that put the Panthers ahead by 40 points and turned the second half into a running clock.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a couple times,” said the sophomore Santacaterina who completed 8 of 14 passes for 104 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions in his first varsity start. “We hung in there well in the second half but too much points to come back from.”
The game started promisingly enough. Jake Will brought down Brett Wainwright for a 4-yard loss on Oswego’s first play from scrimmage, and Jake Boser sacked Wainwright two plays later to force a 3-and-out.
Bobby Hess capped a 6-play drive by sweeping right and running over a would-be tackler for a 4-yard score and a quick 7-0 Geneva lead just 4:01 into the game.
Just as quickly the wheels came off. Michael Stewart’s 5-yard run tied the game, and when Geneva fumbled on the second play of its next drive, Richardson was there to return the ball for a touchdown to put the Panthers up 13-7 after the first quarter.
That turned out to be just the start. After another Geneva fumble, the Panthers converted a pair of third downs on their only long scoring march of the game, an 11-play, 71-yard drive capped by a 35-yard play-action pass to Jack Kwiakowski for a 19-7 lead.
Geneva fumbled the ensuing kickoff and the Panthers scored again. Wainwright only attempted three passes in the game and all three went for touchdowns including strikes that gave Oswego leads of 33-7 and 40-7 as it outscored Geneva 34-0 in the second quarter.
Just when Geneva looked like it would score just before halftime, Hess coughed the ball up while picking up a first down on a 4th-down run inside the Oswego 5. Richardson’s 98-yard return on the play put the Vikings in a 40-point halftime hole and gave Wicinski a challenge in what to say to his young team at halftime.
“There’s no reset button, it’s not a video game, we can’t go back to 0-0,” Wicinski said. “It was about growth. We have a lot of green on this team. We told them we need to get better at what we need to do. It was a difficult situation at half.”
The Vikings actually wound up outgaining Oswego 298-249. Hess ran for 139 yards on 17 carries and T.J. Miller picked up 65 yards on his 6 chances.
None of that mattered after what Wicinski believed to be the most fumbles one of his teams has had.
“That’s got to be the most,” Wicinski said. “That’s (six fumbles) a season. We just fumbled the season. Hopefully that’s what we did, that’s all she wrote.”
Geneva scored twice in the second half on another Hess touchdown run and a 25-yard strike from one sophomore — Santacaterina — to another, Pace Temple.
“Hopefully it’s the first of many to come,” Santacaterina said.
“We just have to practice, we’re fine. It’s only one game, it’s not a season.”
Very true, but that season continues the next two weeks with Wheaton North — a 49-0 winner over Bartlett on Friday — followed by Batavia who just knocked off No. 3 Glenbard North.
Those are on the road so Geneva will have to wait a couple weeks before trying again to win on its new turf.
“I’m not liking this field a whole lot,” Wicinski said. “I might have to purge it.
“We got our butts whipped but I’ve felt worse coming out of a 1-point loss. We just never gave ourselves a chance.”