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Burckhardt, Knights grind it out

Sunday, October, 21 By Steve Palladino
Staff writer

North Andover's game plan was to mix things on the offensive side. But, by the second half, the blueprint centered around Matt Burckhardt's ability to grind out yardage and valuable time off the clock.

"He is Mr. Dependable," said North Andover head coach John Rafferty of his senior fullback who spent the day bullying his way through the Pentucket line on his way to a career-high 124 yards during North Andover's 21-10 win at Pentucket.

The 5-11, 190-pound captain cashed in the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter and the clincher in the game's final minute.

"We felt that if we got control of the game, we could run," said Rafferty, whose offense handed the ball to Burckhardt on 16 of 26 second half rushing plays. The Knights ran the ball on 48 of 58 offensive plays and ran up 260 ground yards. Sophomore Zach Iovanella gained 116.

North Andover took command late in the third quarter when Burckhardt blasted through for a 19-yard touchdown run that put the finishing touches on a nine-play drive.

Burckhardt carried the ball four times on the drive and quarterback Steve Boudreau (20 yards rushing, 55 yards passing) came up with two important third-down conversions to keep the drive moving.

"We knew that we had to control the ball," said Boudreau. "We have a lot of respect for Pentucket and they have a good offense that we had to keep off the field."

Now with the lead, North Andover's defense forced Pentucket to punt on its next series and the Knights took over with 7:02 to play. From there, the Knights controlled the clock for 16 plays in the next six minutes.

The Sachems would get the ball back, but not until Burckhardt went in from four yards out with 47 seconds to play.

"Up front, they controlled and took us out of the game," said Pentucket head coach Steve Hayden. "We couldn't keep the momentum at all today."

Despite being out of sync for the first half, the Sachems apparently had the momentum fall into their hands when junior back Chris Modlish was on the receiving end of a half-ending Hail Mary pass that was tipped around before Modlish hauled it in.

"It was luck," said Modlish, who caught the ball as he crossed the goal line. "The ball was tipped around and it happened to land in a perfect spot. We thought we had the momentum, but we didn't carry it into the second half."

That game-tying touchdown was most of Pentucket's offensive highlight for the day. The Sachems did enjoy a brief 10-7 lead when Ryan Durkin connected on a 30-yard field goal in the third quarter.

Pentucket's offense was led by Nate Bunnell's 106 yards (on 19 carries).

North Andover opened the scoring late in the first half when Iovanella leaped over the front line to break loose on a 37-yard rush into the end zone, capping off a nine play drive that featured two third down conversions | one on a Burckhardt four-yard run and the other on a Iovanella 10-yard run.

North Andover converted 8 of 13 third downs.