Messina Has Big Night as Mounties Honor John Allen
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Homecoming, Senior Night, dozens of football playing alumni and the biggest name in Mount Greylock football on hand, a drive for a league title and a berth in the Western Mass tournament.
The Mounties football team had plenty of motivation going into Friday night’s game against Ludlow.
Junior Cal Messina said it was a little something extra on his mind as the team got ready for its final regular season home game.
“It was rough last week with Jude [Rorke] going down,” Messina said of the senior running back who injured his leg in a win over Monument Mountain. “It kind of motivated us a lot because we knew he’d do anything to be on that field again. It’s a rough loss.
“So it really made us step up in every aspect: the line, Michael [Wellspeak] at quarterback, me at running back. I think Jude going down really motivated us. We really wanted to do it for him.”
Messina did plenty, rushing for 286 yards and four touchdowns in a 54-26 win as Mount Greylock won its fifth straight, improved to 5-1 and put the exclamation point on a night dedicated to legendary coach John T. Allen.
Allen, for whom the athletic field is named, was joined by many alumni from the school’s 1967 Intercounty Championship team -- the main honoree in its 50th anniversary season -- as well as many more players he led during more than three decades at the school.
The large Homecoming crowd was treated to a shootout between “rivals” in Mount Greylock’s newest league, the newly created Intercounty South.
Besides Messina’s monster night, Mount Greylock got two touchdown catches (one for 71 yards) and a 70-yard punt return from Sean McCormack as well as 87 yards and a touchdown from Taylor Cummings.
“I think it’s really up front, that’s what starts it,” Mount Greylock coach Andrew Agostini said. “Between Cole [Seaman], Reece [Gillette], Hoby [MacWhinnie], Paul [Roeder] and Spencer [Zheng], they do a good job no matter who is running it, whether it’s Taylor or Cal. It really starts up front.
“And when backs are going 5 yards untouched, then they can show off what they have. But I think the line played awesome. They’re definitely the foundation of our team, and if we can run, we play with anybody. It’s important. That was good to see.”
After a sluggish start that saw the neither team score on the first three possessions, Mount Greylock broke things open with a 69-yard drive that ended on a 32-yard pass from Wellspeak to McCormack. Messina ran in the 2-pointer, and Mount Greylock had a lead it never relinquished.
Ludlow answered with a touchdown, but the 2-pointer failed, preserving the two-point margin, and on the ensuing possession, Messina busted a 56-yard TD run to help Mount Greylock take a 16-6 lead.
It was 24-6 after Cummings scored from the 38 midway through the second -- the first of five touchdowns in a span of 6 minutes, 28 seconds.
Ludlow answered with a 61-yard drive, but Messina scored on the very next play from 52 yards out to make it 30-12.
After Mount Greylock got the ball back at the plus-33 with 3:26 left until half-time, Messina scored from the 14 to make it a 24-point game.
But Ludlow’s Justin DeBarge threw for 42 yards in a last-minute drive to get the Lions within 36-20 at the break.
Part of what kept it close: 53 yards in Mount Greylock penalties in the first half.
“I felt like we’d have a couple of good plays, and then there’d be a penalty,” Agostini said. “That was really frustrating. But the second half was much cleaner. We were able to put it away and get rid of some of those penalties.
“We don’t get penalized a lot, so that was uncharacteristic. But we’ll fix it, and hopefully we won’t have those in the future.”
Mount Greylock scored the first three times it touched the ball -- a 47-yard Messina run, McCormack’s punt return and the long pass from Wellspeak to McCormack -- to push its lead to 54-20.
Messina said that while the Mounties were in the locker room for the pre-game and half-time festivities honoring Allen and the alumni, the team was very aware of the significance of Friday night’s honors.
“John Allen came to our practice yesterday and talked to us a little bit,” Messina said. “He told us all about the love of the game. You only have one time in high school playing football, so make the most of it. It was awesome to talk to a guy like that because he’s legend around here. He’s the guy, and it was really awesome hearing some of his words of wisdom.”