DALTON, Mass. – The East Longmeadow football team Friday scored touchdowns the first four times it touched the ball and went on to a 35-20 win over Wahconah in the regular season finale.
The Spartans’ Brandon Phillips Jr. and Porter Carroll each ran for more than 100 yards – the bulk of it in the first half when the visitors moved the ball seemingly at will.
Wahconah (4-4) cleaned things up defensively in the second half, but other than a couple of big plays – one on a fortunate bounce – in the first half, it was unable to generate enough offense to climb out of the hole.
“Yeah, too big a hole,” Wahconah coach Gary Campbell Jr. said. “And we didn’t block. We didn’t play well offensively at all. It was a couple of big plays. I mean, let’s face it, we get a lucky bounce there on the long pass, and Wes [Dews] broke off a nice one there on third or fourth down.
“But other than that, we couldn’t sustain anything offensively. At the end of the day, it’s a simple game. If you don’t block, it’s hard to play offensive football.”
Dews led Wahconah with 79 yards on the ground. Sixty-one of those yards came on a third-and-3 play for a second-quarter touchdown.
The loss means that Wahconah will have to do some scoreboard watching to figure out its fate in next week’s Division 7 State Tournament.
It went into the final week of the regular season with hopes of moving up from its No. 11 position in the last in-season power rankings – maybe even up to an eight seed and a home game in the 16-team playoffs. Wahconah won’t fall out of the top 16, but a road game at a high seed is now a strong possibility.
Campbell was not concerning himself with the bracket in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s Senior Night loss.
“I don’t care if we’re seeded first or 16th next week – obviously it’s going to be closer to the latter,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is, we have to look inside ourselves. And we have to come to practice on Monday and get better and have the will after a hard disappointment like this to come back and say, ‘Hey, I want to be better, and I want to prove I am better for next week.
“That is our job. That is our duty. And that is our charge.”
Longmeadow (5-3) did its job offensively in the first half on Friday.
The Spartans took the opening kickoff and marched 60 yards, getting a key 27-yard completion from Kevin Baker to Donovan Vanegas on a fourth-and-7 to keep the drive alive. Braden Gotta’s first extra point of the night made it 7-0.
After its defense forced a three-and-out for Wahconah, East Longmeadow’s offense got a 69-yard completion to Jake Robidoux for a TD and a 14-0 lead.
Wahconah answered with a 64-yard pass play from Landon Corcoran to Owen Brennan, who alertly grabbed the rebound from Corcoran’s intended receiver, who was mugged by the Spartans’ backfield, drawing a flag that Wahconah declined to make it 14-6. Dews’ two-point conversion run got his team within six points.
East Longmeadow then took the ensuing kickoff and went 69 yards – the last 23 on a pass from Baker to Robidoux – to go ahead, 21-8. And after another three-and-out for Wahconah, the Spartans got two runs for 42 yards from Phillips to take a 28-8 lead with 9 minutes, 47 seconds left in the half.
Dews’ 61-yard dash cut the margin back to two scores, 28-14, at half-time.
And Wahconah got a big lift early in the third from its defense.
After East Longmeadow held Wahconah without a first down on its first possession of the third quarter, the Spartans offense went from its 49 to the plus-33. But on first-and-10 from there, Braedon Melle picked off an East Longmeadow pass to stymie the drive.
Wahconah’s offense responded with its best drive of the night, marching 84 yards in 11 plays.
Corcoran went 4-for-5 on the drive and picked up a fourth down conversion on the ground. He capped the drive with an 8-yard run to make it 28-20 with 3:03 left in the quarter.
But East Longmeadow allowed Wahconah just one more first down the rest of the way.
Wahconah’s defense, though, made a couple of stands of its own, stopping the Spartans on fourth down at the plus-34 and the plus-20 in the fourth quarter.
The second stop came with 1:56 left to play. But Wahconah’s hopes for a last-minute game-tying drive were dimmed after the Spartans’ Cohen Bachicha got a sack on first down, pushing Wahconah to its 10. Three plays later, East Longmeadow had the ball back on downs at the Wahconah 20 with 1:33 on the clock.
Rather than running out the clock, the Spartans opted to use their timeouts, throw the ball three times and eventually score to make it 35-20 with 11 seconds left.
Campbell had no complaints about East Longmeadow pushing to increase its margin of victory.
“That’s life, and they want to improve,” Campbell said, alluding to the Spartans’ ranking in Division 4 heading into Friday night. “They’re on the bubble, too. They’re like 17, 18, 19, somewhere in there. So, no. No qualms at all. That’s life, and that’s football. And that’s the system we’re in.”
The MIAA plans to release the brackets for the state football playoffs on Sunday at 1 p.m.
