O’reilly Achieves 1st Victory

By MICHAEL LELLO [email protected]
Saturday, October 27, 2001 Page: 3B

KINGSTON – Northwest Area has a knack for making its opponents look like
championship-caliber teams.

Friday night, it was Bishop O’Reilly’s turn.
Tailback Frank Crofchick ran for 211 yards and three touchdowns to lead the
Queensmen to a 35-14 homecoming victory at Spartan Stadium, O’Reilly’s first
of the year. For the second consecutive week, the Rangers (0-9, 0-8 Northeast
Pennsylvania Football Conference Division 4) allowed a team to break into the
win column. Last week, Bishop Hoban knocked off Northwest, 30-20.

“It’s been tough this year,” said O’Reilly coach Gregg Yankovich, who’s
squad features only four seniors. “We’re dealing with a lot of issues with
youth and inexperience. A lot of sophomores are starting. It’s basically like
a J.V. team out there, but they’ve been working hard all year. Hopefully we
can carry it over to next week, the last game of the year, and hopefully next
season.”

O’Reilly (1-8, 1-7) took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter on a 35-yard
touchdown pass from John Pekarovsky to Jim Chupka and a 20-yard Crofchick run.
Crofchick added 11- and 9-yard touchdown runs in the fourth quarter.

Crofchick, a junior, has been hampered all year by nagging injuries
suffered in a preseason car accident.

“He’s a talented kid, a tough kid,” Yankovich said. “He runs hard. He’s
not blessed with speed, but he has good vision and he runs extremely hard, and
that’s what we need. We haven’t had it this year until this week.”

Chupka had three catches for 52 yards, and Will Stienruk and Bill Smith
picked up 43 and 42 receiving yards respectively. Pekarovsky, a junior, had a
prolific night, going 11-of-17 for 151 yards, a touchdown, two two-point
passes and an interception. He often rolled to his right or left before
finding an open man and spread the ball around, using five receivers on the
night. He also made two interceptions from his spot in the O’Reilly secondary.

“He’s a talented quarterback,” Yankovich said. “He has a strong arm, he
makes good reads. He made good decisions tonight, even taking the ball and
running. He’s started to progress really well and we got him coming back for
another year yet.”

Pekarovsky managed to pick up some ground on several broken plays and
finished with 16 rushing yards despite being sacked five times. Dan Shultz led
Northwest with 101 yards rushing.