RallyNorth.net

Thu, Nov 23, 2006 10:00 AM @ Hamilton-Wenham

Team	Final
Ipswich	7
Hamilton-Wenham	0

Ipswich holds on, makes playoffs

Friday, August, 24 By Mike Grenier
Staff writer

HAMILTON | It's impossible to overstate how much it means to a team to be on the verge of winning a championship, and then to have potential disaster lurking around the corner.

Ipswich High was in that precarious position yesterday against a remarkably resilient and fired-up Hamilton-Wenham team. The Tigers were five seconds away from a victory that would have propelled them to the postseason. They were also five seconds away from an upset loss that would've soured their entire season.

"I wouldn't have been able to bear a loss today," said Ryan Gagnon, a senior two-way starter for Ipswich. "I don't know what I would've done. I just know it would have been (unbearable)."

Fortunately for Gagnon and his teammates, there was only jubilation and tremendous relief when Ipswich held on, 7-0, to earn the Cape Ann League Small title and a berth in the Division 3A playoffs. Ipswich (9-2) will face Manchester Essex on Tuesday night at a site and time to be announced in the school's first postseason football appearance since 1992.

Hamilton-Wenham, which had as much on the line as Ipswich since both teams were 4-0 in divisional play, nearly came up with a miraculous ending.

After making a magnificent goal-line stand | Ipswich was repelled on four straight plays following a first-and-goal opportunity at Hamilton-Wenham 1-yard line | the Generals mustered an 84-yard drive in the game's final two minutes. The drive stalled at the H-W 6-yard line, but the Generals had saved their timeouts and got the ball back at the Ipswich 20 following a short punt from the end zone by Steve Phaneuf.

Hamilton-Wenham (7-3) worked it down to the 5-yard line with 0:05 remaining. Everything was in place for a wild ending. "I had nightmares," admitted Ipswich coach Ted Flaherty, undoubtedly thinking about how Ipswich lost to CAL Large champion Masconomet, 15-14, last month on a Hail-Mary pass. "So much happened in this game and when you get to (the final play), it's either going to be elation or devastation. Really, it would've been devastating to lose it."

Sullivan, who passed for more 1,300 yards this season while helping keep Hamilton-Wenham in the CAL race, never got the opportunity to throw the ball for a possible tie or win.

Going on a quick count, the center hiked the ball when Sullivan wasn't looking, and Ipswich recovered the fumble to close out the game.

"I saw (Sullivan) looking at his receivers ... then the ball just came up and hit him on the side and it was loose," said Gagnon. "Andrew Ruta jumped on it for us and that was it. "But this was not an easy game. It was a battle all the way. Both teams battled."

It was a brutal ending for Hamilton-Wenham, which had held Ipswich's Steve Phaneuf (26 touchdowns and 1,310 yards rushing) to 63 yards on the day over 15 carries, with no TDs. The game's lone score came on Alex McCarthy's 16-yard run up the middle, completing a four-play, 53-yard drive, with 5:50 left in the second quarter. Gagnon kicked the extra point for the 7-0 edge.

The Generals couldn't have asked for a better chance at the end. The exchange between center and quarterback had been exemplary on this sloppy, rainy day. But this time, it wasn't.

"We had some kind of miscommunication there," said Hamilton-Wenham coach Andrew Morency, who guided H-W to the league's title game in a year when no one gave the Generals much of a chance to be in the race. "Ironically, this is the first time all season where we've had this kind of mishap. We have a young center and we've been really good at executing those plays.

"But you have to give Ipswich a lot of credit," he added. "We couldn't score on them and they made a couple more plays than we did. That's a championship team."