PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The high school football season is fleeting.
The teams from Taconic and Putnam did their part Friday to make it feel just a little bit longer.
Taconic and Putnam combined for 32 incomplete passes and 20 accepted penalties -- plus a few offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct calls -- in a 24-16 Taconic win that consumed 2 hours, 52 minutes at Berkshire Community College’s Gene Dellea Field.
Dazyear Moore ran for 109 yar ds, and Matthew McIntosh threw a pair of touchdowns as Taconic picked up its first win of the season.
“In the first half, we were aiming to try to throw the ball against these guys,” Taconic coach Jermaine Sistrunk said. “And we kind of could, but we wanted to get our bull going, which is Dazyer Moore. He had a great game on the ground today.
“And when you have that, you’re able to do a couple of different things, so they couldn’t just sit on one aspect of our game.”
McIntosh was efficient throwing the ball early, completing seven of his first 11 passes for 47 yards and a touchdown in the first half.
He directed his team to a score the second time it touched the ball, after a Sean Harrigan interception and 30-yard return set up Taconic at the plus-40.
McIntosh was 3-for-3 on the scoring drive, which ended with a 2-yard completion to TraQuon Hall. McIntosh then threw the 2-point conversion to Ceasar Santos to give Taconic an 8-0 lead.
It doubled its lead on its next possession, which started at midfield after a punt. Moore broke off runs of 23 and 14 yards to get the ball into the red zone, and McIntosh capped the drive with a 5-yard pass that Harrigan picked out of the air in the end zone.
The 2-point try was no good, and Taconic settled for a 14-0 lead that stayed in place until midway through the third quarter.
That is when a strip and recovery by Jake Hall gave Taconic the ball at Putnam’s 20, and the hosts drove all the way to the 5 before fumbling the ball away on third and goal. On Putnam’s first play, the Taconic line surged into the backfield and tackled the ballcarrier in the end zone for a safety and a 16-0 lead.
Putnam got on the board with 3 minutes, 47 seconds left in the fourth quarter, but Harrigan broke up the 2-point try to keep it a two-score game at 16-6.
And a 30-yard Santos return of a onsides kick attempt put the Taconic offense at the Putnam 35 to start its next possession. After runs of 21 by Moore and 14 by Dez Merced, Taconic’s lead was back to 24-6 with 2:52 to play following another 2-point throw by McIntosh.
Putnam drove 43 yards for a score with 46 seconds on the clock, but after Taconic recovered the onsides kick, it just needed to take a knee and start celebrating its first win since 2019.
“We had a great week of practice,” Sistrunk said. “The guys really worked their butts off. We had to compensate for one of our better guys being injured, but the ‘next man up’ philosophy came in full effect this week.
“It was a process here, building from the ground up, getting these guys to believe in our system, believe in our plays and just having each other’s backs. That’s what we preach all week. This week was having each other’s back. That’s why you keep hearing us saying, ‘Family.’ It’s about having each other’s back no matter what. And they did that today.”
Taconic (1-4) goes to Chicopee on Friday.
