Liberty overcomes slow start with backup QB, whips Foothill

The crippled concern wasn’t precisely what Liberty manager Rich Muraco was expecting Friday night, but the last result mostly was.

Muraco scratched his starting backmost soon earlier crippled time, but the second-ranked Patriots dominated the 2nd fractional to rotation past big Foothill 34-6.

Junior Colin Gregorio filled successful for anticipated Liberty starter Jayden Maiava for undisclosed reasons and needed a small clip to find his groove. He yet recovered it, completing 14 of 23 passes for 257 yards and 3 touchdowns.

“Jayden was a precocious scratch,” said Muraco, whose squad improved to 3-0. “Colin did a large job, particularly since helium didn’t get a ton of reps.”

Even so, the Patriots struggled to instrumentality power early. They jumped up connected a 37-yard walk from Gergorio to Germie Bernard midway done the archetypal 4th and extended the pb to 13-0 erstwhile Gregorio connected with Koby Kinser for a 62-yard scoring walk with 8:15 remaining successful the archetypal half.

But the Falcons, who were playing their opener aft their crippled was canceled past week, chopped the shortage to 13-6 precocious successful the 2nd 4th erstwhile Kendric Thomas hauled successful a 5-yard Cameron Paul pass.

For the 3rd consecutive week, Liberty’s defence committed aggregate drive-extending penalties, a information that Muraco said was among his apical concerns.

“I emotion my defense,” said Muraco, whose squad held Foothill to 82 first-half yards. “There’s a batch of endowment there, but they conscionable person to larn to play wrong the rules of the game. We privation them to beryllium aggressive, but they’ve conscionable got to larn to halt earlier the whistle.”

Muraco said helium lectured his defence astatine halftime, and it paid off. The Patriots dominated the 2nd half, scoring connected a 2-yard tally by Champ Kapanui, a 3-yard tally by Cliffton Weber and different TD walk from Gregorio to Kinser.

Gregorio completed 10 of his 13 second-half walk attempts.

Bernard had 7 receptions for 91 yards for Liberty, and Kinser finished with 80 yards connected 3 receptions.

Thomas carried 17 times for 79 yards to pb Foothill.