By BRANDEN MELLO
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WOOD RIVER JCT. — Chariho High football coach Mike Kelly has said after each of his team’s first three Division II-A losses that the Chargers’ defense played better than the scoreboard indicated.
Kelly pointed out that teams rarely drove the field against the Chargers, but scored on quick strikes. Whether it was Woonsocket’s Travis Gagne scoring on a 95-yard touchdown run or Tolman’s Kyle Maynard throwing a 55-yard touchdown pass or West Warwick’s Reuben Paygai throwing two touchdown passes of long than 55 yards, the Chargers simply haven’t stopped the big play.
That all changed Friday night against a winless Warwick Vets team. The Charger defense, which allowed an average of 27.3 points in II-A games, held the Hurricanes to one first down and 14 yards of total offense in the first half. The Hurricanes passed the ball better in the second half, but the Charger defense held in the red zone to earn Chariho a 24-0 victory.
  
For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Chariho Times

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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WOOD RIVER JCT.—When Chariho sophomore Alex Tougas lofted a high shot in the general direction of the Pilgrim net Tuesday evening, Charger assistant coach Kevin Kennedy sat on Chariho’s bench and softly said “bounce, bounce,” hoping the ball would hit the ground and sail over Patriots’ keeper Desiree Sherman’s head and into the back of the net.
The play happened exactly as Kennedy hoped, prompting the Charger bench to erupt in joy as Tougas scored a stellar goal to tie the match 1-1.
Unfortunately for Chariho, however, that joy wouldn’t last long and, in the end, that one bounce was the only bounce that went the home team’s way all night.

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Chariho Times

By BRANDEN MELLO
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KINGSTON — URI senior quarterback D.J. Stefkovich should have had a big advantage on the Towson defense in Saturday’s Colonial Athletic Association contest. After all, Stefkovich was making his first start since 2007 and thus the Tigers couldn’t have had too much relevant film to analyze.
But, in a bit of coincidence, the Tigers are coached by Rob Ambrose, the same Rob Ambrose who was the quarterbacks coach at the University of Connecticut when Stefkovich, then a heralded quarterback at Staples High in Westport, Conn. went up to UConn’s summer football camp.
“You guys didn’t know this, but I coached Stefkovich for four years when he was in high school,” said Ambrose, who is in his first year as the head coach at his alma mater. “When I was the quarterbacks coach and the (offensive coordinator) at UConn, Staples High School came to the camp as a team. So, I knew him quite well. He’s a heck of a football player. I knew he was multi-talented athlete as a quarterback.

For more, read the 10/14 edition of the Narragansett Times

By DAVID PEPIN
Special to the Times

PROVIDENCE – Narragansett and Moses Brown made mistakes aplenty Saturday afternoon, including a combined seven turnovers and 16 penalties.
But Moses Brown came up with more big plays to overcome its mistakes, and sent the Mariners home from the East Side with a 21-14 defeat.
While the Mariners’ effort represented a vast turnaround from last week’s 45-0 catastrophe against Mount Pleasant, four giveaways, including an ill-timed interception while knocking on the Quakers’ door for the tying touchdown late in the third quarter, dropped Narragansett to 1-3 in Division III (2-3 overall).

For more, read the 10/14 edition of the Narragansett Times

By ERIC RUEB
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LINCOLN – The debate about who the favorite for the Division I girls volleyball championship has been going on all season long.
Monday, Prout may have ended it.
In Monday’s 16th Annual Koch Eye Volleyball Tournament – the traditional prognosticator for who will be holding the state championship trophy in November – the Crusaders came in on a mission and may have won its most important match of the season thus far, coming back after losing the first game for a 22-25, 25-12, 15-11 win over East Providence in the tournament final, Prout’s second straight Koch Eye championship.

For more, read the 10/14 edition of the Narragansett Times

By BRANDEN MELLO
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EAST GREENWICH — Every statistical indicator point toward Thursday night’s I-South top-of-the-table clash between East Greenwich and South Kingstown being a high-scoring, back-and-forth affair.
The two teams scored 10 goals in their first meeting earlier in the season, both squads have three players who have at least nine goals and the teams have combined to score 92 goals. Of course, those stats didn’t take into account a massive tactical change East Greenwich Dave Petrucci made in practice the day before the showdown.
Not only did Petrucci moved his sweeper – sophomore Megan Greineder- to midfield, but he also the bold decision to take sophomore Meagan Hallworth, one of the team’s top scorers, from the front and match her up with South Kingstown all-state forward Amanda Graham,. Those changes, along with a brilliant half-volley by Kiley Powers, lifted the Avengers to a monumental 1-0 victory over the Rebels.  

For more, read the 10/14 edition of the Narragansett Times

By BRANDEN MELLO
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KINGSTON — In a Colonial Athletic Association game that would decide whether URI or Towson would fight for a spot in the middle of the pack of their respective subdivisions or find themselves firmly rooted to the basement of the conference, the direction of these two struggling programs came down to two fourth-down quarterback runs.
Sure, there were 118 other offensive plays in the game, there was a missed extra point and there were pass-interference calls in the end zone that irritated the visitors, but with the Tigers holding onto to a slim one-point lead in the fourth quarter Tiger freshman quarterback Peter Athens made a great play. And, with his team trailing by eight with under a minute left in the game, URI senior D.J. Stefkovich didn’t.
Facing a fourth-and-2 at URI’s 35, Athens, after a timeout, moved to his right, evaded a tackle and bolted up field for a 35-yard touchdown. Three drives later, Stefkovich drove his team to the Towson 29, but after failing to find an open receiver down field, Stefkovich tried to run for a first down, but came up short in Towson’s 36-28 win over the Rams in front of 3,314 fans at Meade Stadium Saturday afternoon.

For more, read the 10/14 edition of the Narragansett Times

By BRANDEN MELLO
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LINCOLN — It wasn’t going to be South Kingstown’s sophomores and juniors who were going to decide what direction the two-time defending Division II football champions were going in after a shocking double-overtime home loss to Cumberland a week ago.
The players who were going to shape the course of the rest of the season were seniors who had been around for the two title runs. Players like quarterback Ben Hamill, wide receiver Ty Stromley, running backs Pat Franco and Pat Gee along with physical linemen Justin Favreau, Matt LeValley, Zachary LeValley and Shane McLoughlin.     
Saturday night against athletic quarterback Ryan O’Dell and Lincoln, the Rebel seniors sent the message to the rest of Division II that they are still the team to beat for the state title. Hamill picked off four O’Dell passes and Gee scored the game-winning touchdown in the first quarter while the Rebel linemen simply overwhelmed the Lions in a 22-0 Division II-B victory.

For more, read the 10/14 edition of the Narragansett Times  
 

 By BRANDEN MELLO
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NARRAGANSETT — The result of Narragansett’s Division III crossover with Burrillville wasn’t positive for the Mariners, but Narragansett coach Kathryn Mahoney could rationalize the loss with how she saw her team play a complete 80 minutes against a team that is likely to reach the D-III semifinals.
After playing a stretch of four games where the young Mariners dropped five points against North Providence, Johnston and West Warwick because of late goals, Mahoney simply asked her team Wednesday to play soccer and not worry about the score.
Narragansett’s Dolci Wagner scored her second goal in as many games to tie the contest 12 mintues into the first half, but Burrillville received a goal and an assist from Karissa Prete and the Mariners couldn’t take their chances in the box as the Broncos earned a 3-1 win.

For more, read the 10/10 edition of the Narragansett Times

By ERIC RUEB
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NARRAGANSETT – Slow starts are nothing new to the Narragansett boys soccer team.
Tuesday afternoon, Westerly made sure there wasn’t going to be a second-half comeback.
The Mariners struggled with possession in the first half and played a better brand of soccer in the second half, but Westerly never let Narragansett get that one goal it needed to steal momentum as the Mariners lost, 3-0.
“I don’t know what happened,” Narragansett captain Ryan Kluk said. “Basically they outplayed us in the first half. We made the adjustments in the second half and we outplayed them, but couldn’t get a goal.”

For more, read the 10/10 edition of the Narragansett Times