A Stevens College assistant coach provided a preview minutes before Saturday's Seaboard Conference championship game in Lancaster.
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"This is what it always comes down to: us and them," he said, while watching Valley Forge Military Academy warm up minutes before kickoff.
In what has become tradition, the two squads squared off on the last day of the season for the conference crown.
Valley Forge won the latest chapter, 16-6, with a bruising running game and stingy defense that refused to give up the big play.
VF quarterback Blake Crowther, an Ephrata High School grad, returned to his home county to avenge last year's loss to the Bulldogs. Crowther led all players with 95 rushing yards, and he threw a perfect pass for a third-quarter touchdown that put the Trojans up by two scores.
"This means a lot. The whole year, I was looking at this game, thinking we have to get this game," Crowther said, walking off the field. "We got back at them."
VF coach Don DiCarlo preached a similar mentality throughout the season.
"We knew from the beginning, if we got to the finals, it would probably be against [Stevens]," he said. "Our season's kind of set looking to play them at the end."
Stevens (7-3) was denied a seventh Seaboard title because their offense sputtered when it mattered most. They drove the ball inside VF's 20-yard-line twice in the fourth quarter, but didn't score a point. An interception on the 10 and a goal-line stand by the Trojan defense thwarted those surges.
"We had our chances, offensively, and we couldn't execute," Stevens coach Joe Wysock said afterward.
The Dawgs ground game averaged two yards per attempt and their quarterbacks missed 20 of 29 throws.
Trailing by 10 with six minutes left, Stevens had fourth-and-goal on the 6-yard line, but Vondre Griffin threw a pass at his receiver's feet for an incompletion.
Stevens scored first on an acrobatic, 47-yard run by Griffin with 1:43 left in the first half. On third down-and-20 Griffin dropped back for a pass, before tucking it in and sprinting upfield. He took a shot from a defender, stumbled and put a hand on the ground to keep his balance before racing to pay dirt. The extra-point try was blocked.
A minute later, Valley Forge (7-1) answered on Jason Wallace's 11-yard run off an option pitch from Crowther.
Crowther put the Trojans up 10 late in the third quarter when he hit Thomas Darden in stride for a 32-yard touchdown.
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