ROCKY RIVER, Ohio (Sept. 6, 2024) -- The rain was of near-biblical proportion. The production of the Rocky River offense was not.
On a home-opener Friday night at the Gridiron in the Heart of River, the weather went sideways on the host Pirates and the visiting Pirates of Sandusky Perkins High School (it was a guaranteed-win-night for the "Pirates"). Certainly, the rain at times went sideways. And so, too, went a Rocky River football team that had won its first two games this season by a combined margin of 50 points (77-27). On Friday, the Maroon & White gave all but one of those points back, as they were routed 49-0 by Perkins.
Rocky River (2-1), which played Perkins in Sandusky last September, was mostly outmanned throughout. The Double-R lost last year's meeting 59-28. On Friday, the Pirates lost their handles on the football too many times to hang with a talented Perkins squad.
As wide as a talent disparity appeared to be, River was hanging tough with its visitors through 24 minutes of play. A turnover at 3:46 of the first quarter and punt at 11:05 of the second short-circuited lengthy Rocky River drives. For the game, the Double-R was a minus-3 in the turnover exchange, and the Pirates also allowed a special-teams touchdown on a blocked punt.
Sans the blocked-punt score, which was Perkins' final tally in the game, the rest of its scores were cranked out on the ground and all by one player. The Perkins ground game pounded into the River defense like the relentless rain into the turf. The Buccaneers had no umbrella to stop senior running back Isaac Bunts.
Bunts bolted for 323 rushing yards. He scored six TDs; two of those were on 51-yard carries. Perkins put the game into running-clock territory by the early moments of the fourth quarter. Rocky River's second-half possessions numbered just four. They went interception-punt-punt-blocked punt. The Maroon & White failed to convert each of their last four third downs and went just 3-of-12 on third downs for the game.
[RR statistics unavailable at time of publication.]
Perkins, meanwhile, scored its last four TDs while running just four offensive plays from scrimmage. The visitors overcame more-than-100 yards of penalties in posting their impressive victory. The shutout they delivered against River since Aug. 19, 2022 (21-0 loss to Midview).
The waterlogged Rocky River Pirates will now look to regroup in a conference opener. River will play its first Cleveland West Conference contest next Friday at Valley Forge.
by Skip Snow
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