1) Greene’s Jaden Eroshevich (#11) hands the ball off against Waterville. Greene fell short 12-6 during their homecoming game. (Photo by Morgan Golliver) 2) Congratulations to seniors William Dunlap and Rhea Malmquist on being named the 2023 Homecoming King and Queen. (Photo by Morgan Golliver)

Waterville 12, Greene 6

GREENE –  Greene committed five turnovers, and had a botched punt snap that led to a Waterville score as the Trojans fell on homecoming weekend in an intersectional clash on Friday night.

“We were flat, and there’s just no nice way to put it,” said Greene head coach Dave Gorton.

The Trojans’ maladies started at the outset when it failed to cover a pooch kickoff. Waterville took advantage of the deep field possession to open the scoring.

Later in the opening stanza, Greene (1-2) was forced to punt near midfield; however, a bad punt snap bounded down inside the 20.

From there, Waterville capitalized on the prime field position scoring its second short-field TD for the 12-0 lead.

“We had penalties negate drives, that bad snap, dropped passes, we fumbled three times, and had two interceptions,” Gorton said. “It was just ugly, but overall, I felt our defense was fantastic. We put our defense in some bad situations (after those early touchdowns), but we held them after that. We forced a couple turnovers, but offensively, we lacked consistency and timing.”

Joel Vielandi was a big bright spot for the Greene offense.

Vielandi had 89 yards rushing and 63 yards receiving on three catches. Vielandi had the team’s lone TD when he reeled in a TD toss from Troy Braman in the fourth quarter cutting the deficit in half.

“We have a lot of injuries (to key players),” Gorton said. “I think when we get everybody healthy, we’ll be okay. We’re just riding out the storm and trying to overcome adversity.”

Statistics

Score by quarters

W’ville  12 0  0  0—12

Greene   0  0  0  6—6

Greene Rushing: Joel Vielandi 14-89, Jaden Eroshevich 9-27, Troy Braman 1-1, Keegan Evans 4-0.

Greene passing:  Troy Braman 3-8-1, 56 yds, TD; Jaden Eroshevich 5-10-0, 24 yds.

Receiving:  Joel Vielandi 3-63, Bill Dunlap 3-20, Derek Renfer 1-(-1), Keegan Evans 1-(-2).