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Toledo's brilliant day helps Lawrence shock Salem

Wednesday, November, 26 By David Willis

LAWRENCE — In his wildest, most fantastic dreams, Lawrence’s Jacob Toledo never could have imagined his high school football career would end so perfectly.

“Not at all,” Toledo said with a smile from ear to ear. “No way,”

With heavy snow blanketing the field and freezing rain falling at a rapid pace, the senor running back was simply magnificent, rushing for a stunning 212 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Lancers to a 26-14 stunner over heavily-favored New Hampshire foe Salem on the night before Thanksgiving.

“All my high school career I have waited to play a game in the snow,” said Toledo. “I didn’t think I was going to have the chance. But I walked out before the game and thought, ‘This is going to be fun.’ And it turned out to be the greatest game ever.”

The night not only crushed Toledo’s pervious career-high for yards in a game (88), but very nearly equalled the diminutive 5-foot-6, 160 pound back’s season rushing total (329 yards).

“Toledo was amazing,” said senior linebacker Tommy Tran. “But he always has a good game. He always steps up when we need him. I wouldn’t want anyone else out there with us.”

With the awful field conditions combined with the freezing temperature, the usually pass-first Lancers knew it was a night made for the ground game. And quarterback Nelson “Milwalkee” Valerio — The Eagle-Tribune area’s all-time leader in passing yards — was more than OK with that game plan.

“I accepted it fine,” said Valerio, who attempted just seven passes. “You have to sacrifice to win. You sacrifice stats and records to win. It was easy. I am a winner first.”

The Lancers started the game off in style, holding Salem to a three-and-out then recovering a fumble on the punt snap.

Kenny Richards set Lawrence up inside the Blue Devil 10-yard-line with a 30-yard rush, and Toledo scored his first touchdown of the game on a 2-yard burst.

Salem then looked poised to take control, advancing to the Lawrence 1-yard line. But David Morales scored a sack, Manuel Vlaun and Willie Fyler stuffed a run for a loss and on fourth down the ball was jarred loose and the Lancers’ Darryl Munoz recovered the fumble.

The Blue Devils again advanced inside the Lawrence red zone on their first possession of the second half. But again the Lancers caused a fumble and this time Junior Delacruz recovered for a turnover at the 8-yard-line.

One play later, Toledo took a handoff going left, turned on the jets and sprinted 92 yards for a touchdown.

“They had clogged up the middle, so I bounced it outside and there was no one there,” he said. “I saw the safety coming up, but I got past him, looked back and there was no one there.”

Salem, however, did respond.

Senior QB John Cerretani was able to elude a rush and loft a pass to a wide open Nick Shumski, who ran 72 yards for a touchdown.

But back came the Lancers with a clock-killing 14-play drive that Richards finished off with a 1-yard run.

The Blue Devils then made one last gasp, as Cerretani beat the Lawrence defense for a 77-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Calabrese to make it 19-14 with 4:01 left in the game.

Lawrence — and Toledo — however would not be denied.

After recovering an on-sides kick, Valerio completed his biggest pass of the day, a 14-yard strike to Luis Crispen.

Then it was Toledo who locked the game up, going left and scoring the 12-yard, game-clinching touchdown.

“There is just no running back like Jacob,” said Valerio. “He’s awesome.”

The following kickoff was fumbled and recovered by Lawrence’s Xavier Rosado, and all that was left was celebrating in the snow.

“We wanted this one so much as soon as we got out we knew it was going to be fun,” said Tran. “We didn’t want to end the season with a loss. We wanted to eat turkey tomorrow with a win. We overcame the weather, the doubters, and the turkey is going to taste a lot better now.”