SALEM — In football terminology, RPO stands for run-pass option.
Friday night at Bertram Field, however, it might as well have meant Reggies Plow Onward.
Using a punishing ground game and a passing attack not often showcased, visiting Greater Lawrence Tech came into Salem and took care of the Witches, 28-6, to win their first game of the season.
Junior lead back Angel Gonzalez (161 yards rushing) and sturdy sophomore Thomas Gbukpa (63 yards on 8 carries) each had a pair of rushing touchdowns while quarterback Josaiah Santiago, another defense, found soft spots in the Salem defense all evening and connected on 10-of-12 passes for 118 yards.
“Dante (Correa), our offensive coordinator, put in a really good game plan for us,” said Reggies head coach Tony Sarkis. “Then they changed their defensive coverage a bit, so we went to a lot of RPOs. We did a great job of managing that.”
Scoring once in every quarter, Greater Lawrence (now 1-1) rolled up 381 yards of offense and held the football for nearly two-thirds of the contest (31 minutes 59 seconds). Defensively they picked off a pair of passes by the Witches and rarely gave up the big play.
“No. 6 (senior Jackiel Ramos) had a great game at middle ‘backer; same with No. 2, Adrian Arias (another senior),” said Sarkis. “Those guys and our outside backers were dogs. And we manned up with our DB’s when they tried throwing the ball, and got an excellent job from (senior Jayvin) Mejia on one side and (junior Kaio) Dasilva on the other.”
Gonzalez, who constantly kept his feet moving and grinding forward after the initial hit, scored from 20 yards out on a toss right to make it 13-0 at halftime. He then capped off a 12-play, 7-minute and 40-second drive to open the third quarter when a 3-yard scoring burst off tackle, then punched in the 2-point conversion for a commanding 21-0 lead.
Gbukpa went up the gut from four yards out in the opening stanza, and salted the game away with five minutes and change to go by going virtually untouched up the gut from 13 yards out. On each of his visits to the end zone, Steph Lambert tacked on the extra point.
“(Gonzalez) is a force for us; he’s tough to bring down,” said Sarkis. “And (Gbukpa) has some speed and can run over people as well.”
Salem (now 0-2) averted being shut out in the third quarter when quarterback George Reyes, following a 34-yard bootleg up the right sideline, found Jeremiah Barahona in 1-on-1 coverage in the end zone and hit him from 26 yards out.