South Side rolls to 40-0 win over Hopewell in Week 0 matchup

HOOKSTOWN — A grand total of 20 minutes separates South Side High School from Hopewell High School. The towns are right next door to each other and, naturally, kids from both schools are friends.

Those factors made Friday night’s Week 0 matchup between the Rams and Vikings all the more entertaining. South Side got the best of Hopewell, opening the WPIAL high school football season with a commanding 40-0 victory.

“Our guys were pretty excited,” South Side Head Coach Luke Travelpiece said. “The kids know one another. Some of them are friends with each other. Both teams were ready to go. We had a great week of practice and I think some of it had to do with the excitement over this game. We’ve never played each other before and we came out and put a successful drive together, were able to rally on defense, get the second one and then it kind of snowballed from there.

“Football is a funny game. You get a couple bounces and it just starts going. So we were fortunate to be on the right end of that.”

Quarterback Brody Almashy, a junior, and running back Parker Statler, a senior, were standout players for Travelpiece. Almashy finished with two passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns. He completed 4-of-9 passes for 115 yards. On the ground, he picked up 73 yards on 14 carries. Meanwhile, Statler also recorded two rushing touchdowns and 55 yards on 11 carries. Statler had 103 yards in the air on three catches, with one touchdown. His longest catch was a 46-yard connection with Almashy.

Statler said that all credit for the performance goes to his connection with Almashy and the offensive line.

“I honestly owe it all to my quarterback and my line,” Statler said. “They’re a big part of the offense. Our defense is solid with Coach [Mike] Commesso coaching us… This performance gives us the confidence to go far. It was a great way to start the season.”

“Par for the course performance,” Travelpiece said about his upperclassmen in Almashy and Statler – who also had two interceptions against Hopewell quarterback Kingston Krotec. “They’ve been there, they’ve done it. There’s a reason they were both All-Conference last year.”

With double coverage from the Hopewell defense flanking him, Statler opened up the scoring with a 46-yard pass from Almashy in the first quarter. To set the tone, South Side elected to attempt a two-point conversion and found success from senior tight end Shane Hankey on a 3-yard rush.

Almashy added to South Side’s lead in the first quarter with a 16-yard run.

On the next Hopewell possession, Vikings head coach Matt Weiss elected to put in freshman quarterback Kingston Krotec. Speaking with the Beaver County Times for Hopewell’s season preview, Weiss said that sophomore quarterback Thomas Pipkins III wouldn’t be automatically guaranteed playing time, and Krotec would see some action. After the game, Weiss stated that Pipkins III was dealing with an injury against the Rams.

Weiss said that despite the loss, he is proud of his team for not quitting and caring all the way through the final whistle.

“It’s not the start to the season we wanted, at the end of the day it’s Week 0, and we have a young team, so there will be growing pains,” Weiss said. “The team didn’t stop fighting. There was a lot of teaching going on. There’s a lot we’re going to learn from this film, and we’re going to apply it. It’s a long road. This is game zero of 10. We still have nine more games to go.

“Am I frustrated? A little, because I want these guys to win. But, I see the optimism in there. I see that they care. Last year, we had a lot of kids that didn’t care. This season, I look at them and these kids care. They’re invested in the program. I like where it’s going.”

South Side continued to roll past Hopewell in the second quarter, with touchdowns from Statler and Almashy again. Statler found pay dirt on fourth and one, and Almashy barely got in the endzone as the clock wound down, with no South Side timeouts left, on a quarterback sneak.

In the third quarter, Statler added his third touchdown with an 11-yard rush past the Viking defense. Almashy added to the Rams' total with a 12-yard touchdown pass to senior Alex Arrigo in the fourth quarter.

Travelpiece said that the commanding 40-0 blanking of Hopewell will help with South Side’s confidence as they enter Game 1 against Ellwood City.

“That’s a much improved football team in Hopewell, and they’re going to do a lot of damage," Travelpiece said. "So we saw that on the tape, so it’s good for our kids to come out and it reinforces everything we’re preaching to them. We talked about this being a team game. I told them before the game that I didn’t know who was going to get the touches… they did a very good job with execution and being unselfish.”

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: South Side rolls to 40-0 win over Hopewell in Week 0 matchup