Fri, Nov 20 2009
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Grove City College retains Mercer County Cup with 20-14 win over Thiel Andrew DiDonato — GCC’s all-time yards passing leader — caught a 3-yard touchdown toss from Stephen Mercer on a 4th-down flea-flicker, capping a 16-play, 60-yard, 7-minute, 27-second series. Coupled with a Bicehouse conversion kick, that knotted the count at 7 entering the 2nd stanza.
“That’s not an unusual play for us ... but it wasn’t supposed to be thrown to Andrew, it was supposed to be thrown to the tight end (Chris Rich),” Smith explained. “The tight end was covered, and in practice Andrew’s always, ‘I’m wide open, I’m wide open!’, so Steve just said, ‘Okay, well he’s probably back there somewhere,’ so he unloaded it to the back corner of the end zone, and lo and behold that was, at that time, a welcome touchdown ’cause that brought us back to 7’s.” Ironically, Stephen Mercer — who hauled in 14 receptions for 171 yards and ended 3rd (114) in all-time GCC receiving annals (3rd, also, with 67 catches this season) — quarterbacked the Grovers during his freshman season. And with the Wolverines winning the time-of-possession sub-plot, it shortened the game and limited Thiel’s opportunities (8 possessions). Ultimately, Grove City gobbled a 38:03 to 21:57 clock-consuming key. With 7:07 remaining to intermission DiDonato drilled a 19-yard TD toss to Stephen Mercer, snapping a 7-all stalemate and culminating a massive 12-play, 97-yard march as Grove City gained a 14-7 edge. Then Bicehouse booted a 42-yard field goal from the right hashmark at the horn, giving the Grovers a 17-7 margin at intermission as GCC covered 57 yards in only 7 plays and 48 seconds, rather than have DiDonato take a kneel-down. “That’s been a big thing for us all year, and we’ve really dominated time-of-possession,” Stephen Mercer acknowledged. “And it really helped (Satur)day. It keeps their offense off the field and really gives us the chance to do what we do.” Bicehouse bricked a 3rd-quarter 30-yarder from the left hash, but rebounded to boot the insurance 29-yarder. “I give him a lot of credit for making that last one because it would’ve been easy to have the miss haunt you,” Smith emphasized. “It was raining and there was a thousand excuses and it would’ve been very legitimate, but he kicked it well. At that point I wasn’t so sure he was going to kick a field goal and I asked him, ‘Can you make it?’ and he said, ‘Yeah!’ and I said, ‘Okay, well, go kick it then.’ And he ended up on his butt, I think, after he kicked the ball, but it went through, and that’s what matters.” The deceptive DiDonato dodged Thiel tacklers for 32 yards rushing and completed a career-high 278 yards on a 24-for-31 passing performance, the 2nd straight week he attained the 300-total yard plateau. The junior has passed for 5,043 yards and 31 TDs — the latter is just one off the school standard. Notes: Grove City leads the all-time series 56-34-6. ... A dozen GCC seniors concluded their collegiate careers, including Stephen Mercer, Brian Mercer (team-high 700 yards rushing, 13 TDs) and defensive stalwarts Zach Fulmer and Adam Eichler, who came into the contest pacing the PAC in tackles and interceptions, respectively. ... GCC has won 9 of its last 10 Senior Day farewell games. ... Thiel senior Matt Turek, a Grove City High product, was injured in an automobile accident earlier this week. Initially, his condition was so severe he had to be air-lifted from UPMC-Greenville campus to St. Elizabeth’s in Youngstown; however, he returned to Thorn Field to join his Tomcat teammates Saturday on the sideline. ... Despite a plethora of injuries, Leipheimer allowed, “I’m so proud of these guys, it’s ridiculous. Great, great character, individually. I’d take ’em any time. We didn’t get some breaks this year and we didn’t make some plays this year, but I love the kids. We got great effort and they’ve got great character. I love ’em.” ——— 25th Mercer County Cup THIEL 7 0 7 0 14 GROVE CITY 7 10 0 3 20 Scoring plays T — Mertiff, 3 run (Madeline kick) 
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