BUTLER TWP — This was hardly a masterpiece.

But for Seneca Valley, it was seventh heaven.

The Raiders shrugged off eight penalties and three lost fumbles — taking advantage of Butler fumbles instead — and rolled to a 28-3 football victory in a mutual Northern Eight Conference season opener Friday night at Art Bernardi Stadium.

The win earned Seneca Valley the Butler Eagle Traveling Trophy for the seventh consecutive year.

“We're not happy about the mistakes tonight ... I'm sure neither team is,” SV coach Don Holl said. “We made some big plays, but we need to make more.

“This is only Week 1 and we have a lot of things we need to work on.”

Things started off well enough for the Golden Tornado. After the Raiders shanked a punt and Butler failed to get a first down, Devin Fitz nailed a 45-yard field goal less than five minutes into the game.

From there, five lost fumbles in the first half dismantled Butler.

A fumbled snap set up a three-play, 36-yard touchdown drive for the Raiders. A fumble off a reverse pitch gave SV possession at the Butler 21 and the Raiders were in the end zone four plays later.

A fumbled handoff handed the Raiders possession at the Butler 34. Six plays later, the score was 21-3.

“I'm disappointed in or execution tonight, how many times we put the ball on the ground,” Butler coach Clyde Conti said. “If we do this against anybody, we don't have a chance.

“We looked like we just started practice yesterday.”

Brandon Clough and Derek Linkenheimer recovered two fumbles each for the Raiders. Mason Dehart scored on a pair of touchdown runs in the first half.

T.J. Holl wound up throwing for 168 yards, along with rushing for 73 yards and two scores. His 13-yard touchdown run with 8:51 left in the final quarter iced the game.

Still, the quarterback was bothered by his performance.

“I missed too many reads and played poorly at times,” he said. “Their defense was coming and I tried to make them miss, but I have to make plays quicker.”

David Slomers and Austin Grupp recovered fumbles for Butler, which aggressively attacked the line of scrimmage for much of the game.

“They were running a high-risk defense. We have to turn that into high-reward offense for us,” Coach Holl said. “We didn't do enough of that tonight.”

Conti said his defense had to gamble.

“Anytime we face an athletic kid like T.J., we're in trouble,” the Butler coach said. “We tried to force some things.

“We're small, we're slow, we're non-athletic. That's not a good combination. That's why no one picks us to win any games this year.”

The Raiders struck for four plays of 25 yards or more — the biggest a 60-yard pass play to Max Cicero late in the third quarter. But SV lost a fumble on the next play.

“This was a sloppy game. There's no denying that,” Coach Holl said.

Butler quarterback Tom Jendesky was sacked seven times, but threw for 92 yards. Chris Smith had a pair of sacks for Butler.

The Tornado ran 69 offensive plays to the Raiders' 46.

“We have to be able to possess the ball to be successful,” Conti said. “We can't do that if we're putting it on the ground.”