Twinsburg Drops Season Opener to Aurora, 19-7

The season-opener for the Tigers didn't go as planned.

Twinsburg dropped the first game of the 2011 season on Friday night to Aurora, 19-7. After forcing Aurora's opening 12-play drive to stall, the Tigers quickly made mistakes of their own. Quarterback Jalen Washington tossed the ball out of the back of this own endzone after the snap was wide left, resulting in a safety and a 2-0 Aurora lead. The Greenmen took the free kick back to their own 49 and began an eight-play drive that resulted in an Anthony Melchiori field goal conversion, extending their lead to 5-0.

Two more offensive drives resulted in punts for Twinsburg, and Aurora capitalized yet again by engineering a six-play, 33-yard drive that culminated in a three-yard touchdown run by 5-11, 225-pound fullback Anthony Opet. Aurora outrushed Twinsburg 130 yards to the Tigers' 36, and the two teams entered halftime with Aurora leading, 12-0.

The Tigers got their big-play offense going in the second half on their first drive. Washington completed a pass to running back John Barton, who broke a tackle at the Twinsburg 40 and sprinted down the Tigers' sideline for an 82-yard touchdown.

"High school football is a game of momentum, that's what's so great about it," Aurora head coach Bob Mihalik said. "You know we're up 12-0 and everybody's happy. We've got a big third and 12, and they convert for a touchdown. Just like that, the game changes."

Aurora's defense continued to show weakness when Twinsburg started another offensive drive at the Greenmen's 46. The Tigers moved down inside Aurora's five-yard line and were poised to take the lead when running back London Carter took a toss down the right sideline towards the pylon. Carter broke a tackle and reached the ball out to cross the goal line, but in the process, he lost control of the football and it rolled out of bounds in the endzone, resulting in a touchback.

"I think the key was when we got that touchback down there, when they were going in for the go-ahead score," Mihalik said. "We made a nice play and got the ball and then went down and scored."

After a touchdown pass was called back due to an illegal block in the back, Aurora punted. Twinsburg couldn't get their offense going when they needed it the most, and went three-and-out, giving the ball back to Aurora. Melchiori's sensational 26-yard run put the Greenmen at the Twinsburg 29 with 8:32 left in the fourth quarter. A series of short runs set up the Greenmen on Twinsburg's four-yard line, where Opet bulldozed his way into the endzone for his second touchdown of the game.

Twinsburg mounted one last comeback attempt late in the fourth, but they were stopped short of the goal line on a fourth-down pass completion from Washington to Barton, sealing the victory for the Greenmen.

"I'm proud of them," Mihalik said. "I don't know if we were as athletic as they were, but we were stronger than them. I think that was a weight room victory for us tonight."

Twinsburg head coach Joe Schiavone explained how his team left Aurora with an 0-1 record on Friday night.

"It's just minimizing the mistakes," Schiavone said. "When you play great teams, you can't turn the ball over, you can't have penalties, it's the little things in those mistakes that you have to correct."

Schiavone didn't enjoy the team's week one loss, but he wasn't discouraged about the team's future.

"I'm very proud of our effort, on how hard the kids fought," Schiavone said. "I've always loved that as long as I've been here, our kids have had such a great fight in them, no matter who we're playing."

Twinsburg travels to Nordonia High School next Friday to take on the Knights. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.