Garnet Valley’s defense turns it up a notch, beat Ridley for league title

RIDLEY TWP. — At the speed that they play and the way they compress space, it’s not easy to differentiate the players clogging the middle of the Garnet Valley defense.

All standing between 5-10 and 6-feet, weighing between 185 and 200 pounds, wearing numbers that in garnet outlined in black look strikingly similar — respectively, 54, 59 and 64 — the trio of Alex Westburg, Matt Gabel and Mitchell Mesaros can start to blur into one hydra-like tackling machine. It doesn’t help that one or more of that group is generally near the ball-carrier at all times.

So it was Friday night, with Garnet Valley punctured for 17 first-half points by a game Ridley offense, that the Jags’ bend-but-don’t-break philosophy gained a meaner edge thanks to that trio.

The defense caused three turnovers, blocked two punts via Gabel and allowed just seven points in the final three quarters in rallying past Ridley, 42-24, to clinch the outright Central League title.

“No matter how many points they put up, we’re always going to bend, we’re never going to break,” the nose tackle Mesaros said. “We’re going to keep grinding, keep going, make as many tackles as we can, and eventually it works out, as you see in the score.”

All three defenders were impressive. Westburg had 2.5 tackles for loss. Mesaros recovered a first-quarter fumble. Gabel did his bit on special teams.

Add in Bryce Stansfield’s third-quarter interception and a fumble caused by Jake Morin and recovered by Alex Nicolaides in the fourth, and you have an idea of how Garnet Valley (9-1, 9-0 Central) blanked Ridley in the second half to win its ninth straight game this season and solidify at least one home game in the District 1 Class 6A tournament.

Nowhere was it more obvious than the job done on Dylan Staley. The Ridley back had 103 yards on 15 carries in the first half, including a 54-yard dash that set up a two-yard dive in which he fumbled, but lineman Sean O’Doherty recovered in the end zone for a 10-0 Ridley lead just six minutes in.

After the half, though, the Jaguars gained the upper hand. Staley was held to 19 yards on nine second-half carries; the rest of the Green Raiders (7-3, 6-3) were limited to 20 total rushing yards.

“Our d-line is really good,” the linebacker Gabel said. “They’re definitely able to get into the backfield and mess things up. That’s their job.”

“I think they definitely keyed on me more because I was getting the ball a lot,” Staley said. “They were just hitting me. I couldn’t really do anything.”

What the Garnet Valley defense didn’t anticipate was how the game started, fumbling the opening kickoff, recovered by Justin Le and leading to Chris Vinci’s 22-yard field goal. A turnover on downs followed, and Ridley used the short field to get the O’Doherty touchdown.

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Garnet Valley’s Mitchell Mesaros (64) and Jake Morin (32) sack Ridley quarterback Jack Grace at the Ridley 1-yard line late in the game Friday night. (Pete Bannan/MediaNews Group