The Garfield G-Men football team made a statement in their Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Grey Tier opener, surging late in the fourth quarter to upend conference foe LaBrae 41-6 last Friday evening at LaBrae Stadium in Leavittsburg.
“LaBrae is a fine football team and we played well, we just tripped over ourselves on a couple of series. To their credit, they came out and took their first series down the field to score. Credit to our kids for hanging in there and finding a way,” said Coach Mike Moser.
Although it is not even the halfway point of the regular season, the G-Men’s (3-1, 1-0) second half has already begun as league play has started. Garfield now owns a 16-game winning streak in the MVAC Grey Tier, having not lost a league game since the 2023 season.
With league play having started, the 13-year coach acknowledged that the G-Men have a lot less margin for error.
“You are going to play seven league games and you are going to have to be ready to play every week,” he added. “There are some fine football teams in this league, so you have a little familiarity because you play some of these teams so often, but it is a good league.”
On Friday, Garfield was clinging to a 20-6 lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Despite scoring three touchdowns in the first half, the G-Men could not pull away from LaBrae and the Vikings were threatening with a long methodical drive that took them inside Garfield’s 20.
The G-Men’s defense stood tall, forcing a turnover on downs by stopping LaBrae just inches shy of a first down. Garfield’s ensuing drive did not last long and punted the ball back to the Vikings, but the defense came up big again, forcing a Vikings’ fumble at the beginning of the fourth period to take over at midfield.
“We would like to get the stop earlier but ultimately you just have to get the stop,” Moser said. “Nothing counts until you get in the end zone, so I was proud of our kids to keep battling and find four downs to stop them to get off of the field.”
According to Moser, not scoring from the LaBrae turnover was not an option for the G-Men, who had not scored since the second period.
“At that point you have to go,” he said. “It is 20-6, you have got the ball. You just got a second life and you have to put the pressure on and our kids did just that.”
The G-Men found the end zone thanks a to a touchdown run by sophomore running back/linebacker Ryder Cain, pushing their lead to 27-6 and seizing all of the momentum.
The Vikings failed to respond, and Garfield added two more touchdowns in the final frame, cruising to a 41-6 victory in a game that was a lot closer than the score indicated.
“It is good to be tested early on in the season and we have played a pretty good schedule up to this point and we feel like we are prepared to get into the MVAC Grey Tier play and keep going,” Moser said.
Although Garfield was not as efficient scoring the ball, Moser credited his team for standing strong and not allowing the Vikings to creep back into the game.
“These are all good lessons to learn,” he said. “You have to do a lot of things right to win; you have to do a lot of things right to put a team away. We did a few of them wrong but eventually we did a lot of them right as well.”
Once again, the G-Men’s vaunted rushing attack propelled them to victory, as seven players combined to rush for 377 yards and six touchdowns.
Even with the tailbacks’ position still not at full strength, the G-Men’s ground game is still punishing the opposition thanks to a wealth of talent at the position and strong execution by Garfield’s offensive line.
Although the G-Men had to rebuild their running game last season in the wake of a big graduating senior class, Moser said that Garfield’s rushing attack has made great strides at the start of the season with so many key players returning.
“We are always a work in progress, but we are proud of the way our kids are playing and proud of the way our kids are running,” he said. “We have some depth back there and we got a lot of kids running the ball well for us.”
Garfield will welcome MVAC Grey Tier foe Champion to JAG Stadium in Garrettsville on Friday at 7 p.m.
