Ferndale Varsity Football Shut Out 7-0 In Season Opener

BERKLEY – Fans of the spread offense were nowhere to be found on Friday night at Hurley Field.

Berkley High School played Ferndale in an old school kind of football game in the teams’ season opener. The Bears held on for a 7-0 win in a game that featured only nine pass attempts.

Both teams kept the focus on the run game and defense. At the end of the day, Berkley was better in both areas.

“Smash mouth, run it down your mouth and take-it-from-you football,” Berkley senior running back and linebacker Omar Sitto said. “That’s how it is, we got the shutout.”

Sitto ran for 61 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown. His 3-yard touchdown run in the first quarter proved to be the difference.

“Early on especially they were giving some of the inside plays, and we just tried to keep pounding it in there,” Berkley head coach Jeff Burnside said.

Burnside was making his debut on the Berkley (1-0, 1-0 Oakland Activities Association Blue) sidelines and it was his newly installed zone defense that helped him pick up his first win. The defense prevented Ferndale scoring from inside the red zone twice. It also came up with a key stop in the final 90 seconds to close out the win.

“I love my defense,” Burnside said smiling.

Ferndale had a great opportunity to erase the Bears lead late in the game with a first-and-goal at the 6-yard line. The Eagles ran the ball on first and second down, but were tackled behind the line of scrimmage.

With only 5:30 remaining in the game, the Eagles (0-1, 0-1 OAA Blue) went for it on fourth-and-six. Quarterback Darius Alvis dropped back to throw and was sacked by Roy Johnson. The 6-foot, 219-pound defensive tackle gave Alvis no room to scramble out of the pocket.

“That’s a mental mistake,” Ferndale head coach Ryan Dunlap said. “We had a bad route, blocking wasn’t great, but we have to throw that ball. You can’t eat that. We’ll address that with him, he’s got to give our guys a chance to make plays.”

Ferndale had one more chance to drive down the field after penalties prevented Berkley from getting a first down.

The Bears defense came up big again. Sitto stopped sophomore running back Shaquann McGriff on a fourth-and-two at the 45-yard line to force a turnover on downs.

“He’s young, on that last play instead of squaring his shoulders he tried to bounce outside,” Dunlap said. “That was it, hopefully he’s learned that lesson.”

Dunlap admitted he made a mistake not giving it to senior running back Earl Tillford on the play. Tillford ran the ball 20 times for 79 yards and seemed to get more effective as the game went on.

The problem for the Eagles was they came away with zero points on two seven-plus minute drives.

“We were down in the red zone multiple times and their defense stiffened up,” Dunlap said. “We started missing blocking assignments, our backs ran hard, but when there’s no blocking they can’t do much.”

Neither team put much effort into the throwing the ball. While Ferndale was forced to pass the ball late in the game, Berkley didn’t even try.  It finished with no completions on the night.

Burnside said the offensive line needs to work on shoring up their pass protection before he starts calling more passing plays.

His main problem with his team’s performance on Friday was the amount of penalties they racked up. The Bears were flagged 12 times.

“Our false starts hurt us, we have to work on a little more consistency,” Sitto said. “I had a 10-yard personal (foul) penalty. It’s just those mental mistakes we have to keep track of.”

The offense was called for back-to-back penalties three separate times. A late pass interference call on safety Jason Tyler extended the game another series. 

“That’s what will make me not sleep tonight,” Burnside said. “Honestly, I haven’t slept all week and I’m not going to get any sleep tonight even though we won the game. Everything should be euphoric, but we got to get that fixed.”

Berkley will try to work out the kinks before hosting Flushing on Thursday (7:00 p.m.) in its only non-conference game of the season. Ferndale will have its home opener next week on Friday against Lahser (7 p.m.).