DALTON, Mass. – Eight teams will play six more weeks of high school football in Berkshire County this fall.
But they likely will not play a better game than this one.
West Dews ran for 137 yards, Landon Corcoran made big plays down the stretch and the Wahconah defense made the biggest stop of the night to stymie a comeback drive in the closing minutes of a 22-18 win over rival Hoosac Valley on Friday night.
Hoosac Valley and Wahconah picked up their ancient grudge match right where they left off after a hiatus of a few years.
The game featured fireworks in the beginning, lead changes, defensive stands and an ending that few in attendance will be able to forget.
“This has been a war since I was a kid,” Wahconah coach Gary Campbell said. “I still sit here from 1987, the fall of ‘87, and we lost 14-12 [to Hoosac Valley]. And it still sits in my gut. It still sits there.
“So there’s all that here. And there’s all that over there [on the Hoosac sideline]. It’s important to both communities, and this was an important game and just a great, great fight among both teams.”
Hurricanes coach Marshall Maxwell, who was furious with the circumstances of the game’s end in the moment, could not help but smile about what the game meant and the quality with which it was played.
“It was old school Berkshire County football,” said Maxwell, who, like Campbell, attended the school where he now coaches. “I told the guys, this is an old, Class A, smash mouth rivalry game. We haven’t played Wahconah in a number of years, and it lived up to the billing.
“They’re a very well coached team, good players, hard-nosed kids, very similar to our team. So I’m very proud of our guys. Wahconah played their butts off, too. … That was some high level football today for a Berkshire County high school football game.”
Right out of the gate, the Hurricanes took things to another level.
Adan Wicks ran the opening kickoff back 80 yards, but Wahconah was able to drag him down at the 10-yard line.
Wahconah’s defense then kept the Hurricanes off the board for the game’s first big defensive stand.
And Dews ripped off a 34-yard carry on Wahconah’s first play from scrimmage to get his team to midfield. Seven plays later, Corcoran connected with Shawn Peltier deep on the left side for a 35-yard TD strike that gave Wahconah a 6-0 lead.
The second time Wahconah kicked off, Wicks did not let anyone catch him, this time racing 90 yards to the end zone to tie the game, 6-6.
Wahconah had the answer, marching 56 yards in a drive that took 6 minutes, 8 seconds and ended on the second Corcoran-Peltier hookup of the night, this time an 18-yard TD that gave Wahconah a 14-6 lead early in the second quarter.
Hoosac Valley responded with a 68-yard scoring march that featured three passes from Kamarion Kastner for 20 yards and four carries for Griffin Mucci, who scored from the 2 to get his team within two points at 14-12.
Mucci went on to run for 118 yards, and Kastner had 70 through the air.
Taking the ball with 3:06 left in the half, Wahconah went from its 37 to the plus-28 before Hoosac Valley was able to close the door and keep it a two-point game at half-time.
But the hosts started the second half with an even longer drive, going from their own 18 all the way to the Hoosac Valley 20. But two Hoosac Valley tackles for a loss in the drive’s final series of downs, including on fourth-and-2, stopped Wahconah and gave the momentum back to the Hurricanes with 4:43 left in the third.
“No. 1 hit us first play of the game with a 35-, 40-yard run, and we talked all week, ‘We have to stop West Dews,’ “ Maxwell said. “We have to stop him. We have to contain him. We have to put bodies on him. And then the rest of the game, they ran the ball, but did he really go off? He had his 8-yard runs, 10-yard runs, but after that one long one, no chunks. Last week, he had chunk yardage. He had 60-, 75-, 80-yard runs. And we did a good job rallying to the ball.
“I don’t think we’ll see another kid like him until we get deep in the [Division 8] playoffs.”
Hoosac Valley needed just seven plays to go 78 yards and take the lead in the final minutes of the third quarter.
Mucci flipped the field with a 56-yard scamper that took the ball to the Wahconah 13. Three plays later, Kastner rolled left and hit Ben Payton for an 18-yard touchdown to put the ‘Canes ahead, 18-14.
That lead did not last long.
Wahconah came right back with a 61-yard drive that featured two big completions from Corcoran, who finished with 116 yards passing.
First, he hit Owen Brennan for a 35-yard gain on third-and-9 that took the ball to the plus-25. Then he found Colby Robb for a 5-yard completion to the 16.
After Dews ran it twice to get the ball to the 1, Corcoran took it to paydirt to regain the lead at 20-18. Dews got the all-important two-point conversion to make it a four-point game with 8:53 left to play.
Hoosac managed just one first down on its ensuring possession, which was ended by Dan Sargent’s third-down sack to force a punt.
But the Hurricanes held Wahconah without a first down and got the ball back on their own 46 with 2:59 left following just the second punt of the game by either team.
The Hurricanes got a big lift when Kastner hit Will Hakes for a 27-yard pickup that took the ball to the 25. And five plays later, Mucci’s 1-yard run gave Hoosac Valley first-and-goal at the 4 with no timeouts.
Kastner spiked the ball on first down with 18 seconds on the clock, and Wahconah took a timeout to set the defense.
Then Hoosac Valley lined up and went with one of its staples, a handoff to Mucci up the middle. Wahconah’s defense drove him back and at some point ripped the ball out of his hands after forward progress was stopped. By the time an official was able to retrieve the ball from a Wahconah defender on the ground and get both teams back on their own sides of the line of scrimmage, the clock ran out before the Hurricanes could get another chance to snap and spike the ball.
As the Wahconah bench burst onto the field to celebrate, Maxwell came out to plead his case with the officials to put some time back on the clock. But that was where things ended.
It was an emotional night for all involved and a heck of an introduction to the rivalry for at least one participant.
“Coach was telling us about back in the day and all those fights, Hoosac and Wahconah and the rivalry and everything,” Peltier said. “I moved out here sophomore year. I’m just new to it. But it felt amazing to beat them - even without that past.”
And, for the sake of the players, the fans and all those to come, it’s a rivalry with a strong future.
“We are still right where we need to be, as far as the Division 8 state playoff,” Maxwell said. “It would have been great to get the ‘W’ tonight. I know our kids wanted it bad. The town wanted it bad.
“But the good thing is … Gary [Campbell] and I talked before the game, and Wahconah is coming to Hoosac next year.”
