Alliance football's Brendan Zurbrugg makes Lake pay for not putting Aviators away

HARTVILLE — The door was left ajar.

And that can't happen with senior playmakers such as Brendan Zurbrugg, K'Vaughn Davis and Ramhir Hawkins ready to burst through for the Alliance High School football team.

Lake missed on chances to build itself a cushion and Alliance produced just enough big plays to pull out a 12-7 Week 1 win at Lake Blue Streak Stadium on Friday night.

To go on the road and beat a Division II Lake team that is the Federal League's reigning co-champion and a 2022 regional finalist, it's the most significant win for the Division III Aviators in quite a while — certainly in head coach Tim Goodman's three years atop the program.

"It's huge," Goodman said. "It's just the progression of our program over the last three years. You know, 3-7 in Year 1 with a lot of growing pains, with these seniors that were playing as sophomores. Then the next year we go 8-3, losing to three 9-1 teams in big games. We were close. We just had to figure out how to win those games."

The Aviators figured it out Friday with a gutsy defensive effort and by patiently waiting for their stars on offense to shine.

Zurbrugg, an Oklahoma University recruit, ran for one long touchdown and threw for another score in the second half to rally Alliance.

Before he broke loose for an 82-yard touchdown run midway through the third quarter, the Aviators had 66 yards of total offense.

"I had those linebackers around me, trying to wrap me up," Zurbrugg said. "But I knew we needed something big. I just kept my legs churning, got out of it and used my speed."

There was no catching the 6-foot-4 Zurbrugg once he was in the open.

"You saw that 300-meter hurdle speed take over," said Goodman, referring to Zurbrugg's third-place finish in that event at the Division I state track and field meet in June.

Zurbrugg finished with 97 yards on 20 carries and threw for 149 yards on 12-of-18 passing. He also averaged 43.2 yards on his six punts, fielding cleanly a couple of dangerously low snaps when he was backed up near his own end zone.

Trailing 7-6, Zurbrugg hit the 6-3, 200-pound Davis on a slant route for 72 yards late in the third quarter to put the Aviators in the red zone. Three plays later, on a third-and-13 play early in the fourth, Zurbrugg rolled right, stopped and threw back to the left for a 15-yard TD pass to the 5-6, 155-pound Hawkins, who had snuck behind Lake's linebackers.

"You can only do that (throwback play) because he has the arm strength to get it done," Goodman said of Zurbrugg.

Davis caught six passes for 111 yards for the Aviators, who found a way to win despite Lake dominating time of possession.

Alliance's previous three games against Lake had resulted in losses of 41-14, 35-7 and 41-21.

"It hasn't even been a close game," Zurbrugg said. "So it feels special. But we've got to keep our focus and keep locking in the rest of the year."

Missed opportunities haunted the Blue Streaks on Friday.

They missed two field goals, including a 24-yarder late in the first half after Alliance fumbled away a kickoff. They couldn't connect with a couple of open receivers in the end zone. After a 35-yard Joey Garro run set them up on Alliance's 2 in the third quarter, Lake senior quarterback Cale Jarvis fumbled the ball and the Aviators recovered.

"We didn't play very well," Lake head coach Dan DeGeorge said. "We turned the ball over. We were undisciplined. It wasn't pretty. Give Alliance credit, man. They fought and did some really, really good things. They deserved to win the game."

Neither team had showed much life offensively before the senior Garro spun out of a tackle near the line of scrimmage and ran for a 56-yard touchdown with 3:17 left in the second quarter.

He finished with 115 yards on only 10 carries.

Jarvis, battling a back problem, was 11-of-21 passing for 118 yards and an interception (snagged by Alliance sophomore JR Jackson). Senior Nate Baker caught six passes for 62 yards for the Blue Streaks.

Lake is searching a bit on offense. Junior Charlie Christopher, who led the Lake defense with 10 tackles Friday, isn't healthy enough to contribute at running back right now, putting a lot of the onus on Garro and Baker (who also play heavy minutes on defense). Center Will Feser missed Friday's game because of injury, as did senior defensive end Dane Jarvis.

"That's football, man," DeGeorge said about the injuries. "That happens to everyone. Everyone's in that same position. So we're not going to make any excuses about that."

Senior defensive linemen Aidan Mozden and Kaden Strait led the Aviators with seven tackles apiece.

Alliance senior defensive end CJ Daniel dropped Garro for a loss on fourth-and-2 with 5:18 left, and the Aviators never gave the ball back.

A pair of Zurbrugg runs went for first-down conversions, including a leap on a bootleg to get a fourth-and-1.

"Our mindset was play four quarters of football and give ourselves a chance at the end," Goodman said. "We did that. We didn't have a lot of success running the ball, but we did it when it mattered most. That was awesome."

Reach Josh at josh.weir@cantonrep.com 

On Twitter: @jweirREP 

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Ohio high school football: Alliance beats Lake behind Brendan Zurbrugg