Montville – Under the category of doing the best you can: Montville High School dressed every available (read: healthy) football player it could Friday night, freshmen included.

Final number: 27 kids.

No surprise, really, that the final score read Griswold/Wheeler 40, Montville 6.

Six seniors — instrumental to the program's success given its depth issues under the best of circumstances — made it quite difficult for coach Tanner Grove and his coaches.

"It's difficult. Defeating. Stressful," Grove said. "But the guys who are here aren't going to quit."

Griswold/Wheeler, dealing with a key injury as well (starting quarterback Andrew Koziol) needed to throw one pass all night. The Wolverines ran the ball most of the night with Logan Chappell and Mike Sims and Montville could do little about it.

Sims' 1-yard touchdown run midway through the first period was a microcosm of most of the game. It was a 14-play drive that was as successful as it was methodical.

"I don't want to keep saying we're young," Grove said. "It's not youth necessarily. But it's inexperience. We might have a junior out there who hasn't played much. It's not like they're all 10th graders out there. But mostly, it was a lot of guys without much varsity experience."

Chappell scored on runs of 9 and 56 yards later in the first half, helping the Wolverines build a 34-0 halftime lead. The clock ran the entire second half.

Colby Vantine and Anthony Franklin also scored for Griswold/Wheeler.

Sophomore quarterback Chas Terni gave Grove and his coaches a glimpse into a bright future with completions of 45 and 50 yards to Colin Nickerson. Terni, whose dad and uncles played in the program, later threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Brown, accounting for the only points of the night.

"We like where Chas is and some of the things he did tonight," Grove said. "He just needs some help around him. I told the kids that how we are right now, we can't just have a few linemen and a back or two playing well. We need all 11. We don't have that elite level player right now that's going to make up for the inexperience."

m.dimauro@theday.com