Avella upends Bearcats behind Bradick, Jaworowski
What a difference a week makes.
Isaiah Bradick rushed for 101 yards and a touchdown and Cole Jaworowski threw for one score and ran for another as Avella upended Bentworth, 22-15, in non-conference football action Friday night.
The Eagles (1-1) rebounded strong from a 29-12 home loss to Mapletown to stun the Bearcats who were coming off an impressive 42-6 win at Brownsville in Week 0.
“I think this gives us a lot of momentum going into next week when we play Mapletown again,” Avella coach Ryan Cecchini said. “We’re running a new offense this year so we’re learning and getting better at it. I think the progress really showed this week.”
First-year Bentworth coach David Pordash felt his team took the Eagles a bit lightly.
“I think they overlooked Avella,” Pordash said. “That wing offense is hard to stop and our guys weren’t prepared for that. We were out of position a lot.
“Now we’ve got to see what we’re made of. If we stay down we’re going to be in trouble. But we’ve got a tough team. I think we’re going to come up and bounce back next week.”
Jaworowski threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Steven Welch and Chas Rush ran in the two-point conversion to put Avella (1-1) ahead 8-0 in the first quarter. Bentworth tied it on Vitali Daniels’ four-yard TD toss to Anthony Washington followed by his two-point pass to Ben Hays in the second quarter.
Bentworth took the lead in the third quarter on Daniels’ 45-yard touchdown strike to Lucas Burt with Caden Hackinson kicking the extra point for a 15-8 lead.
The Eagles, who were outscored 29-6 in the second half against the Maples, refused to fold after intermission against the Bearcats.
“We had a no-quit attitude,” Cecchini said. “We never gave up, we persevered. We got down in the third quarter, we fought our way back.”
Jaworowski scored on an eight-yard run later in the quarter then Rush threw a two-point completion to Bradick on a trick play to put the Eagles ahead to stay, 16-15.
Bradick’s fourth-quarter TD run gave the Eagles some breathing room and their defense thwarted a late Bentworth threat to seal the win.
“We just came out, played ball, hit people,” Jaworowski said. “That’s been the motto of the week, just run it down their throats. And it happened.”
Jaworowski deflected credit for the win to his teammates.
“There’s other kids that had good games, including Isaiah, Chas, Broden (Hamm) and the whole hogs up front,” Jaworowski said. “The line did an incredible job blocking. We had massive holes.”
Cecchini agree.
“It was an impressive win,” Cecchini said. “We just kept fighting and eventually our offensive line took over the game.”
Daniels threw for 193 yards and added 43 yards on the ground for the Bearcats (1-1).
“They came out a little flat the first half. The second half they came out a lot better and聽fought hard,” Pordash said. “We’re a young team still. We played a lot of sophomores and juniors.”
Had the Bearcats got into the end zone on their final drive, there would’ve been no overtime, according to Pordash.
“We were going to go for two at the end to try and get the win,” he said.
Cecchini likes the path the Eagles are on.
“Right now we’re starting to get things going,” he said. “The defense is playing well. We’ve just got to keep that momentum going.”
(Westley Burchianti contributed to this story.)