Alvirne High's Kyle Gora scans the field and delivers a throw against Salem in the Division 1 playoffs Saturday.

SALEM – A blue-chipper like Alvirne’s Kyle Gora, with such an impressive athletic resume built up, could never have dreamed his high school football career would end on a semi-frozen field, on the short end of a 53-6 waxing to close out a winless senior campaign.

“It’s definitely not how I pictured it,” said Gora, a four-year starter on defense and three-year starter at quarterback for the Broncos, after Saturday evening’s Division 1 playoff-opening loss at Salem.

“It’s been a learning curve. Freshman year was the first time I ever went through a losing season, and we had two amazing years as a sophomore and junior. This year, I knew going in not having many returning starters, we didn’t have a lot of experience.It was just about having fun.”

Not only did the Bronco’s graduate 27 seniors from last-year’s state semifinalist, they were bumped back up to Division 1 after two straight trips to the Division 2 playoffs.

Add in the pandemic, and you can imagine just how difficult the fall season has been.

“Everything was crazy, it was so confusing, so stressful not knowing, but it worked out,” said Gora. “We got to play, we were fortunate.”

Saturday’s playoff opener was all about the home team, which took the regular season meeting between the two, 46-12.

“We knew coming in that Salem was very good. We also knew that we played them in the opener and with 40 seconds left in the first half it was 18-12,” said Gora. “We knew we could hang with them, but we just made a lot of mistakes. It came down to fundamental football, and they did it better.”

Salem took the opening kick and struck first with Aiden McDonald banging in from four yards out, just 2:14 into the game. The Devils made it 14-0 midway through the quarter on a Damien Gigante 15-yarder. Dante Fernandez would round out the first-quarter scoring, dashing 21 yards around the end to make it 21-0 Salem.

Alvirne simply had no answers on offense, spending the better part of the day in either third-and-long or third-and-very long situations.

“It was tough, penalties killed us,” said Gora. “It’s tough getting 10 yards (for a first down) against a team like that, 15-20 yards, makes it so much tougher.”

The Alvirne offense managed just 109 yards on the day, only 50 coming in the 34-0 first half.

Fernandez and McDonald added Salem TD runs to close out the half. David Jacques (7-yard run), Jonas Dorsett (36-yard run) and Noah Mustapha (62-yard interception return) scored Salem TDs.

Alvirne did manage its one touchdown in the third quarter when Gora hit Anthony Ferullo on a nice 24-yard TD hookup.

For Gora, he’s hoping there’s plenty to look forward to in the winter.

The senior state champion wrestler already has offers from Division 1 Sacred Heart and Edinboro. He’s also being recruited by West Virginia.

“It’s time for wrestling, I’m ready to go. We’ll see,” said Gora. “It will be interesting to see if we have a season, but it’s not going to stop me from my training. I’m ready to go.

“Emotionally, we’re right back into (confusion). They already canceled New Englands. Hopefully we’ll get a state tournament. Winning another state title would be cool.”

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