Thornton Academy football coach Kevin Kezal admitted that up until Saturday’s homecoming game against Scarborough, he hadn’t seen anything too special out of his special teams units.
Senior Josh Graffam’s hand changed Kezal’s thinking late in the third quarter on Saturday, though. The 5-foot-7, 155-pound defensive back squirmed through Scarborough’s offensive line and got his hand on an extra-point attempt that would’ve tied the game with 25 seconds to go in the third. The Trojans held on to win 7-6 and improved to 2-2; the Red Storm fell to 0-4.
“Our attitude in practice (has changed), our intensity out on the field. We’re showing a little more emotion out on the field. The first couple of weeks we weren’t really playing with a lot of emotion out there, but now we are,” said TA defensive back Travis Adams, who had two interceptions in the game. “We would’ve liked to beat up on them, but we’ll take the win. We proved today that we can win the close games.”
When the Trojans marched 80 yards on six plays at the end of the first half, the game looked like it was going to be anything but close. Sure, Scarborough forced a turnover on downs on TA’s first possession and a fumble on the next one, but the Trojans seemed to finally settle into a groove on the scoring drive.
Quarterback Brian Morrison chewed up 40 yards when he scrambled down the left sidelines on an option play. And then Jason Perreault (28 carries, 148 yards) ate up 35 more yards with consecutive runs of 24 and 11 yards. Adam Rooney capped the drive with a one-yard plunge.
As impressive as they looked on the drive, though, that was all the scoring the Trojans would do. The Red Storm would bend, but it wouldn’t break.
“On defense we’re starting to get that tough-nosed attitude, blue-collar attitude,” said Scarborough quarterback Spencer Murray, also a defensive back.
The Trojans went three and out on their next two possessions before having the clock the run out on them during their last possession of the half.
“We thought (Scarborough) would be tough. We saw them against Massabesic and they did nothing (against Scarborough) their first three offensive series,” said Kezal. “They’re scrappy defensively. They run pretty well. They give you a lot of different looks, and I think part of it was us we didn’t execute really well.”
The Trojans were held to just 13 total yards on their first three possessions of the second half.
The Red Storm offense was sputtering as well, but there was a spark when it got the ball with 1:46 left on the clock in the third quarter. Murray picked up five yards on a QB keeper, and then Brendon Leblanc (16 carries, 51 yards) picked up 21 on consecutive runs of 10 and 11 yards. Murray finished things off when he bounced an inside run out to the left sidelines for 32 yards.
That set the stage for Graffam’s big block.
“It’s a game of inches,” said Murray. “When it came down to the game of inches we missed blocks, the kick gets blocked, I throw a ball two inches too high and it gets picked off.”
More on that pick off later. In the immediate aftermath of the blocked point, the TA offense regained the swagger it showed in the first half and marched 59 yards down the field, chewing up more than five minutes along the way.
“We were able to finally get something going,” said Kezal. “We tried a bunch of different things and really weren’t having much success, so we just went to our goal line stuff and were able to get a little drive going, which ate a lot of time, which was nice.”
The drive stalled out, though, when Morrison was intercepted on the goal line by Scarborough captain Matt Wahrer.
The Red Storm was forced to punt, but it got the ball back one more time – with 2:12 left on the clock. Murray missed his receiver by – like he said – inches on first down, and Morrison intercepted the ball to lock up the win for TA.
“It’s another step in a long and tough process. My heart goes out to the kids ’cause they played their hearts out. And you feel like someone’s wrenched your own out. They gave everything they had. It comes down to essentially one point on special teams and that shows how important special teams are,” said Scarborough head coach Eric Klein. “We had our chances. We played a great game defensively, a great game, but today just wasn’t our day.
“The kid’s are learning. It’s tough moving up to Class A football and we’re still learning some tough lessons about you’ve got to play every single minute of every single play, but we’re getting there.”
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