Boxers give
Eagles the boot
Brockton High football coach Peter Colombo called it, “kind of a muffed play.”
Boxers’ senior safety Dominique Williams labeled it, “the luck of the Irish.”
While quarterback Sam Previte’s late-game scramble against St. John’s Prep Sunday afternoon won’t be found in any Boxers’ playbook, it couldn’t have been drawn up any better as it turned out.
Bounced around in the backfield on a broken play late in the fourth quarter, Previte broke two tackles and scrambled for 16 yards before being tackled at the 8.
With less than two minutes to play in a 14-14 game, Previte’s improvisation on third-and-8 led to senior James McAvoy’s 19-yard field goal with 14.4 seconds to play, lifting the Boxers to a thrilling 17-14 win over the Eagles.
“I have to talk to him about that one in practice,” Williams said of Previte’s heroics. “Quarterbacks got moves. Everyone thinks he can run the ball, but I call it the luck of the Irish.
“He’s got great awareness too.”
Williams’ conversation with Previte, who rushed for 61 yards and threw for another 48, certainly won’t be a one-sided one discussion.
Williams proved to be just as big of a playmaker in helping Brockton improve to 3-1.
With 3:18 left in the opening quarter, Williams intercepted St. John’s junior quarterback Chris Coady at the 10 and went all the way for a 90-yard touchdown return.
The PAT was blocked by St. John’s Prep senior Michael Connor, giving the Boxers a 6-0 lead.
“I just read the quarterback’s eyes, played zone and broke on the ball,” Williams said.
Williams also made his own third-down conversion on the 20-play game-winning drive that took nearly 10 minutes off the clock. On third-and-12 from the Boxers’ 48, Previte completed a 28-yard pass to Williams that put the Boxers on the 25.
“He’s multi-dimensional so we had him in there at fullback on a few plays,” Colombo said of Williams. “That’s what we need. We’ve been searching for offensive answers and Dominique and Albert (Louis-Jean) need to help out.
“He (Williams) came up big, especially on that third-down catch.”
Louis-Jean, a junior defensive back and wide receiver, made his own offensive contribution on Brockton’s two-point conversion after the Boxers’ second TD of the game early in the third quarter to rally the visitors from a 7-6 halftime deficit.
The touchdown was set up by junior running back Trevor Offley’s 48-yard run on the first play from scrimmage in the second half.
Offley was almost brought down at the 30, but broke free and ran over another Eagles’ defender before being tackled at the 20.
Four plays later, Previte faked the handoff and ran it in himself for a 3-yard touchdown with 9:32 left in the third quarter. On the two-point conversion, Louis-Jean scored on a reverse handoff to put Brockton up 14-7.
St. John’s responded by taking the ball all the way down to the Brockton 23 on an 18-play drive that seemed dead on a third down after Coady was sacked by junior defensive end Brien Massie for a 6-yard loss on the 29 as the third quarter expired.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, however, Coady completed a 22-yard pass to junior Tyler Coppola on the 6. Two plays later, Coady pushed the ball across the goal line on a 1-yard keeper to tie it 14-all with 10:01 to play.
“Right now, the anchor of our team is our defense,” Colombo said. “Prep earned every inch, Prep controlled the ball the entire third quarter. I give them credit because that’s not easy to do on our defense.
“It was a great game, what I expected from two good teams. We got the ball last and hung on.”
St. John’s fell to 1-3, but the Eagles were pleased to play much better than they had in their previous losses.
“We played well the whole game,” said St. John’s Prep senior running back George Sessoms, who rushed for 89 yards on 19 carries. “We make that tackle (on Previte) and they don’t go down to the 8 and make that field goal.
“We were pretty much one play away.”
For Colombo, that one play might ultimately symbolize the difference between a successful season and a season headed toward the brink.
“It was kind of a muffed play that he made into a positive,” Colombo said of Previte. “When those things happen, maybe it will be a good year, because that’s not the way we drew it up.”
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