Gettysburg Football Scores Big in Season Opener
Gettysburg Bullets Banner (Photo Courtesy Gettysburg Sports)
By Max Ferguson, Staff Writer
On Saturday, Sept. 7, the Bullets football team stepped onto the field for their first game of the season. The team’s scrimmage versus Shenandoah University was rained out, making this game Gettysburg’s first time out on the field this season.
This outing was also newly appointed offensive coordinator Nick Turchyk’s first game in the position. Armed with a new playbook and respective play caller, the Bullets sought to set the pace for the rest of their season in their opening game versus Juniata College.
The Bullets had a slow start to the game. Juniata struck first blood when they scored a touchdown after the first kickoff.
The first Bullets offensive drive ended in 3 plays and a loss of 3 yards as Rocco Abindoor ’26 was sacked.
Following a small rush and an incomplete pass, G. Matthew Van Istendal III ’25 was called out to punt it away.
On this punt, he booted away a personal best 58-yard punt. This would be the first of several impressive kicks Van Istendal would send away in this game.
Following another unsuccessful attempt by Gettysburg, Juniata scored once again to make the score 14-0.
After an unsuccessful drive from both teams, the Bullets finally seemed like they worked out the kinks of their new offensive playbook.
After taking the ball up 4 yards himself, Abindoor connected with Walle Harwigsson Lundblad ’26 for a short gain of 4. Then, on the last play of the drive, Abindoor threw a 41-yard bomb to Jason Roskam ’26 to get Gettysburg on the board. After blocking Istendal’s field goal attempt, Juniata would score again. The first quarter would end 21-7.
The big play made by Abindoor was merely a sign of what was to come next. The second quarter of the game was a complete mirror image of the first.
The Bullets scored 27 points in the second quarter. Michael Zrelak ’26 began earning his Centennial Conference Player of The Week award when he opened the second quarter box score with a 51-yard run to the house to make the score 21-14 following a good extra point from Istendal.
The next score in this quarter would come from near identical circumstances. But this time, Abindoor would be the one to house the football as he would scramble out of the pocket and run 48 yards to get Gettysburg one point behind Juniata.
Following a 65-yard rushing touchdown from Juniata, Zrelak would play copycat and score a 67-yard touchdown of his own. At this point in the game, the score was 27-27.
Knowing they would receive the second half kickoff, the bullets knew they had a chance to blow this game wide open if they were to make a defensive stop.
Arthur Stubbs ’26 was the one to fulfill this prophecy when he picked off Juniata’s Calvin German. However, Jason Roskam fumbled the football on Gettysburg’s drive, immediately giving the ball back to Juniata.
Nevertheless, Gettysburg would make another stop to give themselves another shot at scoring before closing out the half. This try proved successful when Zrelak would get yet another touchdown to make the score going into halftime 34-27.
At the beginning of the half, Juniata boldly onside kicked the second half kickoff which they then recovered.
However, this was all for naught as Gettysburg would make a defensive stop, forcing Juniata to punt. With the ball they should’ve gotten first, the Bullets scored on their opening drive of the half on a scramble from Abindoor following another 50-yard rush from Michael Zrelak.
With the score 41-27 at this point, Juniata knew they needed to score if they wanted to stay in the game, which they did.
After making a stop to give themselves the ball again, Juniata’s hopes of tying up the game were crushed when Nate DeLorenzo ’26 forced a fumble which rattled the Juniata offense, ultimately leading them to punt.
Going into the fourth quarter, Gettysburg smelled blood in the water. Abindoor found Jason Roskam downfield on a 53 yard touchdown pass to put the Bullets up 47-34 following a missed extra point by Isaac Parks-Gill ’28.
The Bullets beatdown on the Eagles continued when DeLorenzo scooped a strip sack up for a defensive touchdown, making the score 54-34 following a successful attempt by Parks-Gill. Up by twenty, the Bullets knew this game was all but over, after another touch from each team, the game closed out with a mind-boggling final score of 61-41 Gettysburg.
The main contributor to this high scoring matchup was undoubtedly the defense being played.
Even though there were some huge defensive plays in this game that undoubtedly altered the trajectory of the score, the huge runs by both running- and quarterbacks demonstrates a clear lack of containment at the line of scrimmage.
Nevertheless, this game demonstrated that coach Turchyk’s could earn Gettysburg a win as there numerous long touchdown passes thrown throughout the course of the game.
The run game Turchyk cooked up also proved effective as Zrelak earned himself Centennial Conference Offensive Player of the week.
Can the Bullets keep up their success? The only way to know is to wait and see when they play again on September 14th at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey.
