Wahconah Takes Down Drury to Stay Unbeaten
 Drury's Kareen Beckett is ready when Wahconah's Darrow Brown misses a pass. |
For the Wahconah Regional High School football team, that moment came Friday night late in the second quarter of an eventual 28-0 win over Drury.
Wahconah (3-0 Berkshire County, 3-0 overall) had a 16-0 lead with 4 minutes, 44 seconds left until halftime when it coughed up the ball on its own 15-yard line, giving the Blue Devils (1-1, 1-2) a chance to make it a one-score game.
But three plays later, Wahconah had the ball back, and in less than three minutes, it was in the end zone to all but put away the game.
"I talked about this at halftime," Drury coach Bill Bryce said. "If we put that ball in the end zone, then it's 16-7 or whatever, and it's a different ballgame. It's a different spirit. And when you turn the ball right back over and they take it down the field and score, it's kind of like pulling the wind out of your sails.
"We can't have that happen. ... At crucial times, we just coughed the ball over to them. We can't win if we do that."
Eli Pease ran for 159 yards and a touchdown, and quarterback Lane Grogan had two scores through the air and one on the ground for Wahconah.
Drury had six turnovers, including five in the first half alone, but none were bigger than the one that gave back the ball after Wahconah gave the visitors a golden opportunity to get in the game.
On first-and-10 at the plus-15, Pease wrapped up Drury's Jose Melendez (88 yards) for a 1-yard gain. On second down, Matt Brzostek and Marco Anastasio combined to stop Melendez at the line of scrimmage.
A missed connection on a third-down pitchout put the ball on the ground, and Brzostek recovered for Wahconah.
The home team then marched 85 yards in nine plays, the last a 12-yard completion from Grogan to Darrow Brown, who made a leaping catch at the 1 and found paydirt from there.
.jpg) See more photos here. |
.jpg) |
It all went back to the Wahconah defense, which registered its first shutout of the season.
"Once the defense got the ball, once we stopped them ... ," Wahconah captain Jordan Fiske said. "Our D-line played low. Our D-line played the best we played all year. And once we had that stuff, I had a feeling tonight was a good night for our line.
"We blocked well, the best our offensive line has blocked all year. I'm sure Eli will vouch for that."
After Grogan picked off a Jake DiLego pass near midfield on Drury's opening possession, Wahconah needed just two plays to score. Grogan hit Fiske streaking down the middle for a 40-yarder, and Pease ran in the 2-point conversion to make it 8-0.
Wahconah's second possession went 52 yards and consumed 4:43 before Grogan ran in from the 30 on second-and-14. A 2-pointer to Brown made it 16-0 at the end of the first quarter, and it appeared the rout might be on.
But Drury got something going on the ground with the 1-2 combination of running backs Melendez and Alex Bush. The Blue Devils went from their 35 to the Wahconah 28 before Joe Dimassimo picked off DiLego at the Warriors' 4, setting the stage for the Wahconah fumble deep in its end moments later.
Unfortunately for Drury, every time it looked like its offense was ready to turn a corner, it was done in by a turnover.
"We turned the ball over five times in the first half," Bryce said. "I don't care who you are, you can't turn the ball over to a good football team five times in the first half and expect to win. The fact that it was only 22-0 (at half-time) was actually kind of miraculous.
"They're a good football team, and we continued to cough it up to them. We just can't do that. We made mistake after mistake after mistake today on every side of the ball."
A week after nearly letting Pittsfield off the mat after half-time, Wahconah took the drama out of this one, limiting Drury to three second-half first downs and punctuating the win with a 70-yard drive that ended with Pease' 5-yard touchdown midway through the fourth quarter.
The other difference between Weeks 2 and 3 for Wahconah: A week after Grogan and Brown dazzled with their air attack, coach Gary Campbell let the infantry carry the load.
"After last week, we wanted to get back to original Wahconah football and just slam it down their throats," said Fiske, a tight end and defensive end. "We wanted to put the ball on the ground and drive and drive, kill time, let our defense take control."