Tiverton pulled off a late 6-0 Injury Fund game victory against Middletown at Toppa Field Thursday and gave hints of better things to come.

With no score late in the second quarter (Injury Fund games are shortened to two quarters) and deep in Middletown territory, senior quarterback Stephen Gacioch faked a pass then scrambled around tacklers down the right side into the end zone. The extra point try was blocked.

“It was a planned right side run but poorly blocked,” Coach Bob Murray said. “He had to get through some tacklers.”

Middletown responded with a late drive of its own when the Tigers caught a break. A Middletown pass was tipped, three players including Tiverton’s Kyle Vermette and Gacioch went up for it — it bounced around off them Gacioch came down with it.

Gacioch threw the ball well all game long managing nearly 10 completions and a bunch more passes that should have been caught. “I think he only threw one legitimate incompletion all game long,” Coach Murray said — there were too many drops.

The defense kept Middletown off the scoreboard all game long.

“I think they did a good job preventing (Middletown) from getting outside,” and need to work on the inside part of the defensive game.

Andrew Perez made a key sack to stop a Middletown drive early in the second quarter close to the Tiverton goal line.

“It’s early — we are still learning how to play, it’s still not instinctual” but there is reason to be optimistic that this team will fare better than last year’s extremely young team.

That team, which had only one senior — Alec Murray, the coach’s son — went 4-4 in division, 4-7 overall.

“We’ve got lots to learn but we’re older this year, a bit more experienced,” he said, adding that the team has a healthy turnout of 45 players going into the opener against the North Smithfield/Mt. St. Charles co-op team.