McCann Tech Routs Smith Vocational

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The month of October has been very good to the McCann Tech football team and very bad for anyone trying to score on the Hornets.

 

Darius Tovani ran for 158 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and the Hornets posted their second shutout in as many games with a 40-0 over Smith Vocational on Saturday.

 

McCann Tech (2-3) kept its playoff hopes alive by taking care of business against a young Smith Voc team still looking for its first win.

 

"We played hard, and that's what I wanted more than anything else," McCann Tech coach Tony Skiffington said. "They had to play hard. We can't come out here and just because you saw some other team pound them the week before -- we can't think it's going to happen.

 

"So we did everything the way we were supposed to do it. Nobody took a break out there. Nobody goofed off. And we got the young kids in the game the whole second half."

 

After holding the Vikings without a first down on their first possession of the game, McCann Tech took over on downs at its own 41.

 

Tovani broke through the line fo a 59-yard run to put the Hornets up by a score ust 2 minutes, 6 seconds into the game.

 

The Hornets recovered a fumble at the plus-37 on Smith Voc's next possession, but a holding call pushed the Hornets back to face a fourth-and-19.

 

They lined up to punt, but the snap went to the short man, Tovani, who ran for 34 yards. One play later, Seneca Bolte scored from the 12; Darian Tovani's PAT made it 13-0.

 

"It's our repertoire this year, and we haven't run it, so we wanted to work on it," Skiffington said of the fake punt. "We weren't going to run it, but we were missing a guy out there [for the punt], and I had to call a timeout. And then I just decided to run it. We were at midfield, so ... "

 

The next McCann possession spanned the first and second quarters and ended in an 18-yard TD run by Darius Tovani.

 

The Hornets scored twice more in the second quarter -- a 2-yard plunge by Josh Brazeau and a 1-yard run by Darian Tovani -- to go to the break ahead, 33-0.

 

The only score of the second half came after Smith Voc (0-5) was forced to punt from its own 5. The Hornets needed to go just 36 yards for an 8-yard Darian Tovani run midway through third quarter.

 

The fourth quarter was played with a running clock, and the teams combined for just 12 plays from scrimmage. The Vikings' best chance to score came on their last possession of the day, when a fumble gave them possession at the McCann Tech 15.

 

But two straight tackles for a loss and a Brandon Demers interception erased that threat, preserving the shutout.

 

McCann Tech looked far more rested than rusted after last week's bye week.

 

"We actually gave them Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday off," Skiffington said. "Having the bye in the middle of the season is sometimes good. They just needed to get away from football. We had some guys that were banged up, that were sick, that had to heal up.

 

"We had a good three or four days of practice this week, and it showed."

 

McCann Tech goes to Palmer on Friday before coming home to finish the regular season against Pathfinder.

 

More photos from this game here.