Eagles strike early
GROVE CITY — Grove City scored three first-quartertouchdowns to take command early Friday night as the Eagles soared to a 47-6 non-conference football victory over Slippery Rock at Forker Field.
Trey Adams opened the scoring midwaythrough the first quarter as he capped off an 84-yard drive by scoring on a three-yard run. Adams, who rushed for a game high 137 yards on 20 carries, had 80 of the 84 yards on the possession.
Kameron Patterson, who threw for 208 yards, connected with A.J. Turner on a 35-yard touchdown pass and Brayden Martin returned a fumble for a touchdown to give the Eagles (6-0) a 21-0 at the end of one quarter.
The Rockets' defense stiffened in the second quarter,onlyallowing six points in the period. Slippery Rock's offense, however, could never get going. The Rockets (1-5) were held to just 39 yards rushing on 38 carries for the game, and managed only 76 total offensive yards.
Molek Walker of Grove City ran the second-half kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown to give the Eagles a 34-0 lead before Slippery Rock finally got on the board.
Bailey Mertens threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Rossi for the Rockets' only score of the game. Rossi led the Rockets in receiving for the game with three catches for 32 yards.
Grove City would find the endzone two more times in the second half to invoke the mercy rule for the fifth time in six games this year.
Despite the loss, Slippery Rock head coach Larry Wendereusz found some positives in his team's performance.
“They (Grove City) had scored over 60 points each of the last two weeks,” Wendereusz said, “and they hadn't punted in the last two games. We forced them to punt a couple times and held their offense down a little bit.”
Slippery Rock quarterback Bailey Mertens completed just six passes in 18 attempts for 37 yards.
“We just did not get out to a good start,” Wendereusz said. “We did start to move the ball a little bit later in the game.”
