The Cranston West football team’s Homecoming celebration was spoiled by visiting St. Ray’s last week, as the Saints ran away with a 28-13 victory to hand the Falcons their first loss of the season.
Mistakes marred the Falcons’ ability to keep pace with the surging St. Ray’s offense, including committing three turnovers and some costly penalties.
West reached the 10-yard line in its opening drive of the game but was pushed back thanks to a penalty, then a recovered onside kick later in the game was also called back due to an infraction. The St. Ray’s defense collected three interceptions in the win.
“We made too many mistakes for us to overcome. Penalties, turnovers, that made it difficult for us to overcome. We’re getting there, we expected a dogfight and that’s what we got,” said West head coach Tom Milewski.
The Saints led 7-0 at halftime and extended the advantage to 21-0 late in the third, but West quarterback Kelan Cornell connected with Charlie Cornell on a deep passing touchdown to cut into the deficit heading into the fourth. Kelan Cornell hit Mehkai Taylor for another touchdown strike early in the fourth to make it 21-13, but the Saints managed to find the end zone in the final minute to pull away with the win.
“The positive for us was that we kept fighting until the very end. We closed the gap a little bit, the score didn’t indicate exactly what the game was. I was proud because we played until the end, but we’ve got to minimize those penalizes and turnovers at big points in the game. That hurt us,” Milewski said.
The West defense has played well in its first three games, including against St. Ray’s, where the Saints managed to keep their offense on the field for much for the first three quarters. The Falcons would come up with big stops late against both North Kingstown and Portsmouth to help West jump out to a 2-0 start.
“Our defense slowly getting better. We’ve got to work on our tackling, our jobs and responsibilities, but overall I’m happy with the defense so far,” Milewski said.
Milewski was also proud of the way Kelan Cornell has handled his duties as the team’s leader, especially on Friday when he and the offense struggled.
“He’s taking it in stride. He’s pretty tough on himself, he’s got to remember that it’s a team sport and not just on him,” Milewski said. “He’s humble, he’s grounded and doing the right thing.”
The Falcons will head north to take on Cumberland for another big DI battle this Friday night before heading home the following week to take on South Kingstown.