SOUTH BERWICK — Late-season victories over winning football teams are big enough.
Long-awaited victories over neighboring rivals? As the Noble football team found out Friday night, those are a little sweeter.
Jamier Rose accounted for four touchdowns – two rushing, two passing – and the Knights broke a fourth-quarter tie en route to defeating Marshwood, 33-20.
Noble Coach Keenon Blindow said he was informed before the game that the Knights hadn’t beaten the Hawks since 2003. Even recent history sufficed; Marshwood beat Noble, 49-26, last season.
“This win is way bigger than us,” said Rose, who helped his team improve to 5-2. “This is for our community, our school, our team. This is a big win. … We played them last year mostly as sophomores, they killed us. It’s a great feeling to come back here and get this win.”
The Hawks (4-3) rallied from a 20-7 halftime deficit to tie the game in the final minute of the third quarter, but they were hurt by turnovers early and penalties late.
“We got back into the game, but they turned around and scored right away, and kind of took that momentum away. After that, it was mistake after mistake,” Marshwood Coach Alex Rotsko said. “We weren’t very mature tonight.”
Penalties hurt the most immediately after Cole Goodwin’s 3-yard run tied the game with 54 seconds left in the third. A personal foul on the kick return brought the ball to the Noble 43, and consecutive personal fouls on the next play moved the ball all the way to the Marshwood 25.
Noble quickly took advantage. Rose kept the ball for 8 yards, and Tommy Gagnon (15 carries, 107 yards) ran in from the 17 yards to put the Knights up 27-20.
“(We said) ‘We’re good. It’s a tie game, 20-20, think of it like it’s zero-zero,'” said Rose, who ran for 83 yards on 21 carries. “We just had to go make plays.”
Noble held on the next series, but a bad snap had the Knights facing second-and-37 from the Noble 49. Rose found Sean Davis over the middle for a catch and run of 39 yards, and Rose kept for a 9-yard score two plays later.
“That was huge. We were only up seven. … If he dropped it, we would have been at third-and-long, not looking good,” Rose said. “It was huge, for momentum reasons.”
Marshwood struck first on a 9-yard run by Goodwin (11 carries, 58 yards, three touchdowns), but interceptions by Rose and Taivian Brown set the stage for Noble to score on three straight second-quarter drives. Rose kept for a 2-yard run to tie the game at 7. He hit Kevin Chandler on play-action pass for an 18-yard score and a 14-7 lead, and Brown beat the defense deep to haul in a 48-yard pass from Rose to push the advantage to 20-7 with 3:47 to go in the half.
“It feels great. I’m putting my team in a good spot,” Brown said. “This is a very good win for us.”
Marshwood answered in the second half, with TD runs of 14 and 3 yards from Goodwin. The Hawks adjusted, attacking the Knights’ three-deep coverage with underneath passes to Benjamin Santisi (four catches, 110 yards), who had catches for 39 and 46 yards.
Just as it did in the first half, however, Noble had a response ready.
“It’s obviously an incredible win for the kids,” said Blindow, who also got an interception from Chandler. “I think it’s going to give us confidence, going into the last two weeks. … That’s what we need.”
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