Norwell just misses its first football victory
A night after missing his first win of the season by a point against East Bridgewater on Friday, Norwell coach Jim Sullivan watched his next opponent, Cohasset, nearly shock Abington on Saturday night.
After losing to East Bridgewater, 28-27, on Friday night, marking Norwell’s unprecedented eighth loss of what has been an injury-riddled season, Sullivan saw Cohasset almost upset undefeated Abington. Cohasset (5-4) cut the score to 14-13 with four minutes to go but had a pass intercepted on the 2-point conversion by Kristian LaPointe, who ran it back all the way to give Abington (9-0) two points of its own. LaPointe scored both of Abington’s TDs.
“I was very impressed with how hard they played (Abington), that took some guts going for the win instead of the tie,” said Sullivan, who takes his team to Cohasset on at 7 p.m. on Friday night, said yesterday.
Cohasset coach Pete Afanasiw said he decided to go for the win because he figured they’d get the ball back. Nevertheless, he was pleased with his team’s effort, especially tailback Dana Valentine, who scored both TDs.
“The kids played very hard, played one of best games all year,” he said. “It was Abington’s Homecoming and they were on an emotional high. We were able to match their emotion.”
Norwell’s game came down to the wire as well after it lost a 27-14 third-quarter league and their ninth straight game of a season in which they have seen their team suffer 14 injuries. East Bridgewater pulled ahead 28-27, on Cory McLaughlin’s 45-yard TD reception from Kyle O’Brien. Norwell marched the ball into the red zone on its final possession but fumbled the ball away near the goal line.
Senior running back Jamie Waters, who scored on an 88-yard run, had eight carries for 142 yards two TDs while A.J. DeBenedictis had 14 carries for 78 yards and 14 tackles.
“It was close it was one of those back and forth games,” Sullivan said. “As I said to the kids at the end I was so very proud. They are still coming to the field every game and trying as hard as they can. As the coaches we all saw so much improvement in all aspects of the game, blocking, tackling, hitting and all of that. We’re looking at little victories. The kids are still working very hard, that’s all I can ask.
“We haven’t got through something like this. It’s learning experience for all of us. We certainly have to look at ourselves and have to reassess all we are doing. Of course it gives us pause to wonder if we are doing things right. It’s humbling. That’s a word I use all the time. It’s as humbling an experience for the coaching staff as it is for the players.”
Mustangs go bowling
Kevin Macdonald only had to make one call Sunday morning to inform his entire team that they had qualified for the second bowl game in his tenure at Milton Academy.
“I called Josh Scott and everyone seemed to be at his house, so it was one call,” Macdonald said of his senior running back, who was hosting the team for a sleepover when he received the news that the Mustangs will play King Low Heywood Thomas of Stamford, Conn., at 1 p.m. on Saturday in East Hartford.
“He was just psyched because I had led them to believe it probably wasn’t going to work out. That’s what I was thinking” said Macdonald, who will bring the Mustangs to their second bowl since he began coaching them in 1996, despite registering four one-loss seasons since in that span.
The Mustangs (7-1) closed out the regular season with a 37-14 victory against rival Nobles & Greenough on Saturday and then put their fate in the hands of the New England Prep Schools Athletic Associations. But Macdonald felt they had only an outside shot at a bowl because Buckingham, Browne & Nichols and Lawrence, both undefeated, are slated to play a makeup game Saturday after the original date was postponed.
NEPSAC officials adecided to have six bowls this year and include the Mustangs.
“I think they bent over backward to make sure we got in because of that,” Macdonald said, referring to the fact that it has been so long since his team has gone to a bowl.
Milton Academy’s last bowl was a 21-20 victory against rival Thayer Academy in 1996, when both teams entered the game undefeated. Macdonald said the team went to its only other bowl the previous year and lost to Holderness of New Hampshire, 42-14.
Belmont Hill will play its bowl against Suffield Academy on Friday at home.
John Mackay of NEPSAC’s post season committee said the sixth bowl allowed them to get every team in New England prep leagues that was undefeated or had one loss into a bowl game.
“So it worked out perfectly,” he said. “We all felt this is special circumstance. We’re not gonna do it again.”
A losing proposition
A 33-13 loss to St. Sebastian’s on Saturday afternoon marked the final and eighth loss of the season for Thayer Academy, the worst record in decades for a school founded in 1877. According athletic department records, which date back to 1976 and yearbook records dating back to 1959, Thayer has not had a winless season since 1959.
“We’ve had a very successful program, I would say overall,” said Thayer coach Jeff Toussaint, who took over the program in 2004.
“The 1964 team was undefeated, untied and un-scored upon. There have been a lot of good teams through ’60s and 1970s. When I played there my four years we only lost one game total from 1978 to ’81. We were always strong in between those years.
“Hopefully we’ll have a better campaign next fall when we recover from this.”
A couple bright spots for the Tigers this year included quarterback junior Paul Monahan, who set a single-game school record with 149 yards on Saturday and senior wide receiver Andrell Hardaway who also set a school record Saturday with 67 yards on six catches.
Monahan finished the season with 85 completions in eight games while Hardaway had 37 catches on the year.
Another silver lining was that plenty of young guys got a chance to play.
“I hope they can see what they can do, what needs to be done in order to be successful,” Toussaint said. “A lot of seniors admitted on senior night that many of them didn’t work hard enough in the off season and they expressed regret about that. I want to young kids to take note of that.
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