LIBERTY — On the night some of his staff wore black shirts with the message “Dominic Can’t Save Them Anymore,” Dom Prologo and the Liberty football team earned a decisive 21-8 victory against his former squad Warren JFK at Leopards Stadium.
The Leopards scored early in both halves Friday and shut down the Eagles’ offense for nearly the entire game, notching another win and the first 3-0 start for the program since 2008.
“We didn’t play our best, but the thing that I’m most proud of is our kids found out that they grind, and they battled,” Prologo said. “We found out how mentally tough we are, and we grinded through a game and we showed how mentally tough we were tonight.”
Things did not start off well for the Eagles, who dropped to 0-3 Friday, marking the first such losing streak to begin a season since 2014.
On the third play of the game, Kennedy quarterback Logan Misocky dropped back to pass and targeted his wide receiver, LaMarcus Provitt, deep down the middle of the field.
The ball hung in the air, allowing for Amar Watson, one of the several Liberty defenders in the area, to jump and pick off Misocky’s pass.
Watson returned the interception across midfield to the Eagles’ 47-yard line, where the Leopards took over for their first drive.
After a holding call negated the opening play, a 10-yard swing pass to Dawaun Moody, Tyson Lawrence-Watson went right back to Moody on a swing pass to the opposite side of the field for 14 yards.
Dyionn Tutwiler then took control of the drive, rushing ahead for 5 yards, 18 and, for the first score of the game, 2 yards to give Liberty the lead with 7:43 left in the first quarter.
Both offenses largely sputtered for the rest of the first half.
Each of Kennedy’s next two drives ended with a punt and without a first down, while Liberty’s offensive possessions similarly concluded with Helaman Garcia booting the ball away.
On their fourth drive, the Eagles finally earned a first down and advanced into Leopards territory for the first time when Misocky completed a 16-yard pass to Provitt on third-and-13. Not long after, Misocky ran for 14 yards on fourth down to further extend the possession.
However, a few ineffective and negative plays, as well as a delay of game, forced a Kennedy punt, calling an end to an eight-minute drive.
Liberty, content with its 7-0 lead, took the advantage to halftime shortly thereafter.
“It’s an excellent defense,” Kennedy head coach Damon Buente said of Liberty. “They got two very, very strong kids on the inside. They’re fast everywhere else, and there’s no doubt that they have a very, very talented group defensively.”
The Leopards, whose offense languished after the early touchdown, emerged from the locker room reinvigorated.
Tutwiler kicked off the possession with a big gain on the ground before Lawrence-Watson found Amar Watson over the middle for an 18-yard completion to convert a third-and-17 and bring the Leopards past midfield again.
A few moments later, Lawrence-Watson again converted third-and-long with an 11-yard run, which set up Moody for a 7-yard rush and then a 21-yard run, during which he broke to the outside and raced toward the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.
Following another Kennedy possession that went in the wrong direction and a punt that failed to go past the Eagles’ 40, the Leopards added to their lead.
The running back duo of Moody and Tutwiler split the work, with Moody rushing for 18 before Tutwiler cut to the outside and glided untouched in for his second touchdown of the game.
“It’s ultimate. That’s who we are,” Prologo said of the importance of the Leopards’ rushing attack. “Our mindset is we’re gonna play great defense, we’re gonna run the ball, we’re gonna force you to do things you don’t wanna do and we’re not gonna put our offense in bad positions. And defense, we want to impose our will on people.”
While Kennedy did not pick up its first win of the season Friday, it did avoid a shutout, thanks to a short touchdown pass with 2:22 left in the game from Provitt to Anthony Georgalas. Provitt also connected with Giovanni Williams on the two-point conversion to make it 21-8.
With the touchdown, the Leopards’ shutout streak ended at two after 41-0 and 35-0 wins vs. Campbell and Niles, respectively, to open the season.
Following the game, Prologo reaffirmed that while much of his team felt otherwise, Kennedy was just another opponent for Liberty.
“If you ask any of my players, they’ll tell you, that all week I told them this is Week 3. That’s all it is, and now we get ready for Week 4,” Prologo said. “Doesn’t matter who we’re playing, it’s about us. We have a goal here and we gotta get better every week, and that’s all I preached all week this week — let’s make sure we’re better this week than last week. That way, we become the team we wanna be.
“I don’t care who the other team is. Like I said, I have fond memories of my time that I was there. There’s a lot of good families, great players there, but at the end of the day, I’m a Liberty Leopard. These are my dudes, and they went out and did their job tonight.”
Warren JFK (0-3) will try to begin to right its season’s wrongs next Saturday, when the Eagles play at East.
“Continue to fight,” Buente said of his message to his team amid the losing streak. “You’re gonna face much worse in your life than an 0-3 football start. And the only thing that you ever do from here and until you rest one day, it’s continue to fight. So that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Liberty (3-0) begins Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Play on Friday vs. Crestview, which also picked up its third win Friday.
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