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Juniata College falls in opener

Grove City Wolverines 39, Juniata College Eagles 14
HUNTINGDON – It wasn’t exactly how Juniata College wanted to start its 2021 football season. But the Eagles fell to Grove City in a non-conference college football game.
It did not take very long for the Wolverines to get going offensively as within the first few minutes of the game, they flew their downfield right into the red zone. Where it appeared that Grove City was going to find a way into the endzone. But the Juniata College defense had other plans. The Eagles stalled the Wolverine offense forcing them into three points instead of seven with a Nick Morrow field goal to give Grove City a 3-0 lead.
About ten minutes later in the opening quarter, the Wolverines capitalized on a Juniata fumble which eventually led to a two yard TD run from Clayton Parrish to give Grove City a 10-0 lead.
Near the end of first quarter, the Wolverines were poised to score again but were denied by senior linebacker Dan Drop Jr who made an incredible interception in the endzone.
The Eagles’ offense struggled to put points on the board at the start of the second quarter eventually turning the ball over on downs. Grove City looked to take advantage but once again the Juniata defense came up big with another interception. This time it was senior defensive back Noah Jacks-Waters who made the catch. However, he made the catch but was out of bounds at the one yard line.
The Juniata offense found themselves in a tough situation where a fumble occurred inside the endzone but fortunately for the Eagles, they were able to recover the ball and gave up a safety rather than give up a potential touchdown for Grove City to make it a 12-0 lead.
With just under 30 seconds to go in half, the Wolverines struck again offensively as quarterback Josh Ehst found Cody Gustafson for a nine yard touchdown pass to take a 19-0 lead heading into halftime.
The Eagles’ offense was held to just 76 yards of total offense out of 23 plays. On the flip side, Grove City had 40 plays in the half for a total offense of 266 yards.
But Juniata continued to grind it out offensively and eventually in the fourth quarter, they were able to get the ball in the endzone as quarterback Aaron Goldberg snuck in there to give the Eagles their first points of the game completely a nine play drive for a total of 93 yards.
“We knew we had to find something that was going to work. We were beating our heads against the wall early in the game,” Eagles coach Josh Carter said. “It took a half for us to make that adjustment. We made that adjustment in the second half and it becomes about execution.”
However it did not take long for the Wolverines to respond as a minute later, they marched down the field with Parrish completing the drive with a 13 yard touchdown run.
Juniata was able to put the ball in the endzone again as Charles Debose scored a two yard TD run to cut the lead down to 33-14.
The Eagles had a total of 70 plays for the afternoon for a total offense of 353 yards. Quarterback Goldberg completed 27 passes out of 47 attempts for 314 yards and collected a rushing touchdowns.
“I think he started to let the game come to him a little bit more. It took a half for the game to slow down for him,” Carter said. “So I think you will be seeing more of what you saw in the second half as we move forward in the season.”
Senior wide receiver Clay Spencer had nine catches for 183 yards, averaging 20 yards per catch with the longest catch was 45 yards.
For Grove City, Esht threw for 323 yards completing 16 of 28 passes with a touchdown pass and two interceptions. Running back Nico Flati had 17 rushing attempts for 105 yards while fellow running back Parrish had 15 attempts for 71 yards and four rushing touchdowns.
The Wolverines had a pair of wide receivers who went over a 100 yards for the game as well with Gustafson had 10 catches for 159 yards including a touchdown and Scott Fraser had five catches for 114 yards.
With this loss, Juniata College starts off the new season (0-1) and will look to get back on the win column as the Eagles will travel to face McDaniel on Saturday. But despite the loss, coach Carter is just extremely grateful to be able to be playing football again.
“Just getting to talk to the team,” Carter said. “Watching them play, getting to hear the fans, converse with officials, have problems with calls, make adjustments. Now we’re back to what we love doing as coaches and players.”
Good luck to Juniata College during the new season.

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