Game of the Week: Drury, Wahconah Unbeaten in League Play
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DALTON, Mass. — Week 2 was a good one for the Wahconah Regional High School football team and a great one for its coaches.Wahconah (2-0) remained one of the county's few unbeaten teams by holding off a furious second-half comeback attempt by Pittsfield on Friday night, and it watched that unbeaten club dwindle when St. Joseph (1-1) blitzed Hoosac Valley (1-1) on Saturday.
But the real winners may have been Wahconah coach Gary Campbell and his staff, who had plenty of material to work with when they got their team on the field to get ready for this Friday's contest against Drury (1-0 Berkshire County, 1-1 overall).
"There's no doubt, come Monday, we are going to have an attention-getter practice," Campbell said moments after the Pittsfield game. "It is no doubt going to be one of those practices. ... Believe me, it will be a definite situation we will have to attend to."
Campbell's main concern was how his team gave up 28 second-half points in a 40-36 win over the Generals (0-2). And even though Wahconah subbed liberally in the second half, Pittsfield had some success moving the ball on the ground even in a 40-8 first half.
By game's end, Pittsfield had more than 360 yards on the ground with four backs going for 40 yards or more.
"Even against our first group," Campbell said. “They scored on our first group in the third quarter, and they came out and they executed very, very well. They've done that two games in a row. They did it with Greylock, and they did it with us.
"They came out from half-time and really put it to us as far as pushing us around a little bit. That's what we'll have to talk to our kids about: keeping that fire a little bit."
The Drury Blue Devils were fired up in their first league action last week, taking a 19-0 lead at Taconic on the way to a 19-6 win.
Drury's Jose Melendez ran for 120 yards and a touchdown and passed for another score in that one and has gone over 100 yards twice this season.
The Devils will be looking for the same kind of production on the ground against a Wahconah team that showed itself to be susceptible to the run.
"We're hoping we can come out and establish our running game like we have our first two games," Drury coach Bill Bryce said. "The thing we have to do is sustain it. We've run the ball well in the first half but haven't been able to keep it going."
Counting Week 1's non-league loss at Athol, Drury has been outscored 19-6 in the second half this fall.
Defense figured to be a high priority for Bryce's squad this week – especially pass defense. Wahconah's Lane Grogan lit up Pittsfield for 173 yards last week.
"We played well defensively on Saturday, but I think that [the passing game] was a weakness we had on defense, an area we need to improve the most this week," Bryce said. "We gave up close to 100 yards through the air (against Taconic). We do have to improve that because we saw Wahconah on Friday night, and they exploited Pittsfield's pass coverage for three touchdowns, I believe."
Of course, all of those touchdowns came before half-time. One thing Wahconah and Drury have in common in the early going has been a tendency toward strong starts. Although Campbell's team is outscoring its opponents by a margin of 54-42, all 54 of those points have come in the first and second quarters.
It did not hurt Wahconah when it pitched a second-half shutout against St. Joe's in Week 1, but it almost proved deadly last Friday.
"We were lucky to come out overall with the victory at the end considering they had the ball for possibly the last play to make a play and come out with a victory," Campbell said of Pittsfield.
"I think maybe it was a lesson learned type of thing. Maybe we have to put up 50, 60 points before calling off the dogs. That's something we have to think about. I don't ever try to do that, but maybe now that's a situation where I know I have to keep the foot on the gas pedal and do that."