Football: Garnet Valley’s backfield depth buries Upper Darby

UPPER DARBY >> When Nick Juliano enters the Garnet Valley huddle on a night like Friday, you can imagine him looking like he’s about to spin a prize wheel on a game show.

Pick a running back, any running back, to run the Jags’ veer offense. Between the quarterback’s ability to make the reads that deceive defenders and the offensive line unfailingly doing the dirty work in the trenches, it’s like playing “Wheel of Fortune,” sans the risk of going bankrupt.

That’s what Mike Ricci’s team can do when the offense is humming like it was in Friday’s 66-22 dismantling of Upper Darby — which featured 413 yards on the ground and rushing touchdowns by five players.

“I think we’re at that point where if their line switches up, our line knows how to react to that, which means me and the backs can react to that,” Juliano said.

The quarterback finished with the gaudiest total of an egalitarian attack for Garnet Valley (2-0, 1-0 Central), toting seven times for 98 yards. Danny Guy covered 83 yards, Dominic Bertone picked up 74 on just four carries, and Matt Lassik ground out 70. Lassik, Juliano and Bertone scored twice each, and the final total of 7.5 yards per 55 carries seems inadequate in capturing the Jags’ full dominance.

Part of the reason was a pair of short fields furnished in the first five minutes of the game by a bad punt snap on fourth down and a strip-sack by Charlie Coslett and Joshua Ciarrocchi that Chad Hrivnak jumped on.

With just five carries covering 67 yards, the Jags were up 14 points in 5 minutes, 9 seconds, and they never looked back.

“It’s great because when it hits fast, the defense doesn’t know what’s coming,” Juliano said. “When we’re up 14-0 in the first quarter, that means it’s working.”

The key is interchangeability in the backs, to an extreme degree even for Ricci with all the success he’s fostered in the last three decades. Yeah, the 6-foot, 205-pound Bertone plays the role of bruiser and Guy is the speed merchant. But Lassik and his backfield mates can hurt opposing defenses in a variety of ways and through a variety of schemes, each able to break away from pursuing defenders but not timid between the tackles.

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