RallyNorth.net

Pinkerton Astros Football '10

Sat, Oct 23, 2010 01:00 PM @ Concord
Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final
Pinkerton 14 0 7 6 27
Concord 0 6 0 8 14

Pinkerton maintains hold on Division 1

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Saturday, October, 23 By Jeff Hamrick

CONCORD, N.H. — Anyone looking for football artistry was at the wrong place yesterday afternoon. But even if it wasn’t a thing of beauty, Pinkerton’s 27-14 victory over Concord allowed  the Astros to take another step toward earning the top seed in the up coming New Hampshire playoffs.


With two weeks left in the regular season, the Astros (6-2 overall, 5-1 in Division 1) hold a half-game lead over Nashua North, which defeated Pinkerton 33-7 in Week 3, and a full-game lead over Nashua South and Salem.
Against Concord (3-5, 2-5), the Astros scored on each of their first two possessions, held off a Crimson Tide rally in the fourth quarter before securing the win with another long drive for the game’s final score.


“It wasn’t a work of art,” Pinkerton coach Brian O’Reilly said. “We started off well offensively the first two drives. We did a good job on the line of scrimmage, but our special teams let us down today immensely.”


The Astros, who gained all 372 of their total yards on the ground, used drives of 64 and 85 yards to grab a 14-0 first-quarter lead on touchdown runs my Mike Mazzola and freshman Manny Latimore, who added two more short scoring runs in the second half and finished with a game-high 133 yards.


But the Pinkerton offense turned stagnant for the next 14 minutes as Concord cut the deficit to 14-6 on a pair of CJ Woods’ field goals. The Crimson Tide tried hurting the Astros defense through the air, but despite Graham McIntire completing 14 passes they managed only 88 yards passing. No completion went for more than 13 yards.


“We played deep on them the whole game long,” O’Reilly said. “We were giving them the underneath stuff. We didn’t believe they could drive down the field on us just by throwing underneath, so we gave them tremendous cushion by design.”


Pinkerton reclaimed a 15-point lead late in the third when Latimore capped off a 69-yard drive for a 21-6 lead, but Concord quickly cut the deficit to 7 with a 43-yard touchdown run by McIntire on the ensuing possession. In the fourth, the Crimson Tide had the ball at the Astros’ 21 but ran out of downs and also had a second-and-10 at the 33 but Alex Pacocha intercepted a McIntire pass to end Concord’s final threat.


“We let them control the ball for long periods of time on us,” O’Reilly said. “That kept us off the field offensively ... But we’ve (stepped up defensively) all year long, and our defense has shown that ability all year long.”


Although Latimore and Emmitt Smith, who finished with 91 yards on 18 carries, did the bulk of the running after intermission, the Astros once again relied on a bevy of running backs to gain 372 yards on 56 carries. Six different backs had at least one carry on Pinkerton’s first 16 plays from scrimmage.


“From my standpoint as a coach, I don’t have to think about on a play ‘Who am I giving the ball to?’ as I do some years,“ O’Reilly said. “I just throw people in. I call the plays regardless who the fullback the left half the right half the quarterback is. We just run the play. And that makes things easy for me play calling ... I’m trying do to even more substituting.”

Game Statistics:

First Quarter

P — Mike Mazzola 7 run (Ryan Coombs kick), 9:16

P — Manny Latimore 5 run (Coombs kick), 2:11

Second Quarter

C — FG CJ Woods 28, 5:35

C — FG Woods 25, 0:00

Third Quarter

P — Latimore 3 run (Coombs kick), 1:27

Fourth Quarter

C — Graham McIntire 43 run (Cody Ferns pass from McIntire), 11:26

P — Latimore 2 run (kick blocked), 1:34 


INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

RUSHING: P (56-372) — Latimore 15-133, Emmitt Smit 18-91, Luke Somers 4-53, Mazzola 6-34, Chris St. Onge 8-32, Kevin Davies 5-29; C (32-188) — McIntire 12-127, Tolbert Nemo 16-39, Parker Callaghan 4-22

PASSING: P — 0-0-0, 0; C — McIntire 14-25-1, 88

RECEIVING: C — Woods 6-47, Nemo 3-26, Ferns 3-4, Callaghan 1-9, Drew Bolton 1-2

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