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Defense puts Georgetown in drivers seat

Saturday, October, 25 By Conor Clancy

IPSWICH — If defense wins championships, then the Georgetown High Football team is on the right track.

The Royals flexed their muscles against Ipswich, downing the Tigers 34-8 in dominating fashion. The win improved Georgetown to 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Cape Anne Small.

Ipswich came into the game coming off their best offensive effort last week against Newburyport scoring 21 points, a season high. Georgetown head coach Matt Bouchard was well aware of the potential of the Tiger running attack.

“Every time we’ve seen Ipswich play, they have dominated the first half of each game on the ground,” Bouchard said. “We had a very strong emphasis to set the tone early and be physical.”

True to his word, Georgetown allowed very little running room for Ipswich runners.

The first Tiger possession ended with a quick punt after three plays and the second saw a swarming Royal defense strip the ball loose from a wrapped up Ipswich player. Defensive end Michael Wootan quickly fell on the ball sending the Ipswich offense off the field. The final Ipswich drive of the first half, and its only drive of the second quarter ended with another quick punt.

All in all, the Royals gave up only 18 yards rushing in the first half and Ipswich managed only two first downs.

Still undermanned thanks to injuries, the defense did not show any signs of inexperience. Linebacker Jeff McLaughlin, who started his first game last week, lead all tacklers with 11. Defensive tackles Nathan Brudnick and Juan Llanos, who also was making only his second start controlled the line of scrimmage allowing

McLaughlin, and fellow linebacker Andrew Sinkewics (8 tackles) to roam free.

Opposite to Ipswich, Georgetowns offense had no problem finding yards, Quarterback Joe Esposito continued to shred through defenses, running for 100 yards and his 39th and 40th touchdown runs of his career. Esposito also tossed two touchdown passes before the entire first team offense and defense were lifted late in the third quarter.

The second of touchdown pass was a pretty 58-yard toss down the sideline to Jaymie Spears who had beaten his defender. Esposito has now run for 100 yards in every game this season and is only eleven yards shy of 2,500 career rushing yards.

When the first team defense left the game they had only surrendered 68 total yards.

“We said that when we came into this league, we wanted to compete for number one. So far this year the guys have done what they needed to do so that every week they can come into the game and compete for number one,” said Bouchard

Ipswichs’ losing streak stretched to 17 since winning the Super Bowl in 2006.