GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – The Drury football team Friday topped Monument Mountain, 39-6 to finish the regular season undefeated and win the Tri-County League Championship.
Games don’t get much bigger than Friday’s with both teams heading into tonight's contest with undefeated league records and still looking to clinch a spot in the state tournament.
Drury (6-0) didn’t take long to get things going with a strong performance from Louis Guilotte. On the first drive, the Blue Devils drove down the field and were able to punch it in just two minutes into the game.
Guilotte had a monster night with five touchdowns and more than 150 yards.
His early score was the start Drury needed, and it got a whole lot better on the ensuing kickoff. The Blue Devils sent a short high kick that they were able to track down before Monument to give them possession in good field position.
It took them only six plays to score again with a nice outside run from Guilotte to make it 16-0.
As good as Drury looked to start the game on offense, the defense was equally up for the task keeping Monument at bay in the run game. The penetration from the defensive line caused issues all night for Monument and things got even worse when Guilotte on the defensive side of the ball blew up the play causing a fumble recovery in great field position yet again.
It only took one play this time to score on a Guilotte 30-yard touchdown run. He reached more than 1,000 yards rushing for the year and has been a big part of this team's offense over the past two seasons.
“I think the past two years he’s over four thousand yards total with special teams included,” Drury coach Al Marceau said. “You can put stuff in that you can’t with other players. He is special, his vision he sees things and always knows the down and distance.”
Marceau said he tried to give his team every psychological advantage going into the showdown.
“We really challenged them this week because of the article, ‘The best offense against the best defense,’ and as a high school coach you can use that to motivate them,” Marceau said. “Monument is a good squad, they run some misdirection and it puts you on your heels, but we challenged them to do their job and not get extended or over pursued.”
The Drury defense did its job, only allowing one score on the night which came on a nice pass a catch from Cole Bissaillon for 50 yards. The game would go back and forth in the second quarter with both teams stepping it up on defense not allowing much room for big plays. The game would go into the break with Drury leading 22-6.
At the start of the second half Drury got a nice special teams play with a kickoff that put Monument within their 5-yard line. This gave the Blue Devils defense a chance to pin their ears back and really get after the ball forcing Monument into a safety and widening the gap. Drury tacked on two more touchdowns on the day including a 27-yard run for Louis Guilotte’s 5th of the night closing any chance for a comeback from Monument.
Drury completed the season undefeated but will still need to wait and see if they did enough to qualify for the top 16 in Division 7. It wasn’t all positives for Drury as they had a couple injuries during the game and had two players taken off by ambulance, but they used that to stay positive and get the job done.
“I told them let’s get a touchdown for Hunter [Marceau], and the first play we got one on a big run,” Marceau said. “Our guys rallied around those guys and wanted to pick them up and play well for them.”
