Peel's four-TD night lifts Western Beaver to first win of season over Hopewell

HOPEWELL —After dropping the first two games of the season, a high-intensity offensive attack led by freshman quarterback Jaivin Peel helped Western Beaver roll over Hopewell Friday night by a final score of 47-0.

“It feels really good,” head coach Ron Busby said after Western Beaver’s first win of the season. “We struggled and kind of hurt ourselves in the first two weeks and had a ton of penalties and turnovers and could not get clicking, so we came into tonight thinking to establish what we can do, which is run Tyson Florence and everything will play off of that.”

Peel might be only a freshman, but he was firing on all cylinders in Friday night’s matchup against the Vikings finding the end zone through the air four times in the Golden Beaver’s win over Hopewell Friday.

“We see him get a little bit better each week,” Busby said. “He listens to his coaches and works to get better. He grew tonight in the pocket and he didn’t panic. He kept his eyes downfield and even though he moved around in the pocket, he found guys open and was still able to throw the football. We know that he is going to continue to grow and he is on the right path.”

After Jadion Bishop forced Hopewell quarterback Kingston Krotec to throw his second interception of the contest, flipping the field for the Golden Beavers, Peel wasted little time connecting with wideout Dorian McGhee for a 31-yard score on the first play of the drive.

Then once Western Beaver forced Hopewell to punt in its first offensive possession of the second quarter, Peel connected with Mikey Crawford twice to end the first half, once coming early in the second quarter after the Hopewell punt where he found Crawford from 27 yards out capping off a long drive for the Golden Beavers.

Peel's second touchdown to Crawford came late in the first half with 56 seconds to go. Peele threw a 46-yard missile down the sidelines to extend the lead to 27 points for Western Beaver.

The passing game was not the only part of the offense that was clicking for the Golden Beavers as the running game helped set up Western Beaver's aerial attack.

Tyson Florence was a force for Western Beaver on the ground, attacking the Vikings; defensive front early thanks to the solid play of his offensive line in the first quarter. Florence broke off a multitude of big runs and then capped off a drive with a 5-yard touchdown run to open up the scoring for the Golden Beavers.

“My fullback was able to get the block every single time,” Florence said. “I was just able to outrun them. The past two weeks the offensive line has also been doing very well helping to seal the edge and helping me get around it has just been great.”

The Western Beaver defense pitched a shutout against Hopewell and was locked in throughout the game intercepting Krotec twice in the first quarter which flipped the momentum in favor of the Golden Beavers.

Midway through in the first quarter, Hopewell was threatening in the red zone on the Western Beaver 15-yard line when Krotec threw a pass that tipped off the hands of his intended receiver and was intercepted by McGhee in the end zone.

“In that first defensive set, we kind of sputtered a little bit but we found out what was going on and made the adjustments. After that, the rest of the game I felt like we played solid defensively so I was happy with what I saw on that side of the ball," Busby said of his defense.

Besides the deep drive in the first quarter for the Vikings, Hopewell struggled against the Golden Beaver defense as they could not muster much of anything throughout the contest.

“The biggest thing for the offense was the lack of execution," Hopewell head coach Matt Weiss said. "We knew that they [Western Beaver] were going to bring at least seven at all times and it is something that we practiced all week and we didn’t execute, we did not stay on our blocks. Our line did a heck of a job last week; this week we were hitting guys with good initial contact but we weren’t sustaining it and that showed.”

Penalties also were killer for Hopewell as it set the Vikings back on multiple drives, which proved costly on a multitude of drives during the first half of play where the offense started to move the ball downfield.

“Last week we did a good job at limiting the penalties. The week prior against South Side Beaver, we got a little momentum and then we took penalties. Penalties kill you,” Weiss said. “Especially when you get momentum and you get a big 10-yard penalty, it is deflating to an offense when you need to get into a rhythm and it puts a lot on the shoulders of the defense.”

For the Vikings (1-2), they fall below .500 for the second time this season. Hopewell looks to bounce back against Avonworth next week.

As for the Golden Beavers (1-2), they will look to stack together another win next week as they will travel to Neshannock on Friday as they continue their road trip.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Peel's four-TD night lifts Western Beaver to first win of season over Hopewell