ATHOL — You could tell everything about Friday night’s Intercounty League North battle between Athol High School and Frontier Regional School from Athol coach Bill LaRose’s postgame reaction.
Following the postgame coach’s handshake, LaRose ran and jumped into the middle of the Athol team huddle to celebrate his team’s come-from-behind, 16-12, victory over the previously unbeaten Red Hawks at O’Brien Field.
The Red Raiders scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to stage the comeback, including the final dagger with 35.4 seconds left in the game as Tyler Lutz took a sweep left 15 yards to the end zone. Nick Casella’s two-point conversion was good and Athol took its only lead of the game.
“We’ve played two independent games, and one team was in Division III above us, so we’ve been in some battles before and this group of kids is really focused in terms of conditioning,” LaRose said as his team celebrated. “We’ve worked them hard in practice to be well conditioned and I think our size wore Frontier down a little bit and we just took the game over in the fourth quarter.”
Athol faced a 12-0 deficit at halftime and the score remained that way when the Red Raiders took the ball over at their own 21 with 5 seconds to play in the third quarter. That began a 16-play drive that spanned nearly six minutes and saw Casella (14 carries, 139 yards) score from 3 yards out. He then ran in the conversion to pull Athol to within four points at 12-8 with 5 minutes, 38 seconds remaining.
Frontier’s next possession ended on a three-and-out as the Athol defense stiffened one final time after holding what had been a juggernaut Frontier offense scoreless in the second half. Athol took over at its 37 with 4:16 to play and two timeouts.
The Red Raiders went to work and didn’t need anything flashy to move the ball up field, as running backs Casella, Tyler Lutz, Robbie Nelson and Mason Barrieau each saw carries on the final drive. Casella’s 13-yard gain on a first-and-1o from the Frontier 18 was the longest play of the drive, and brought the ball down to the Frontier 5 with just over one minute remaining.
That’s when things got interesting as the Frontier defense stepped up and threw the Red Raiders for back-to-back losses, including Aaron Landry’s sack of Trevor Mousseau for a 7-yard loss with just over 40 seconds left. That made it third-and-goal from the 15, and what had been a raucous Athol crowd, suddenly turned a bit more quiet. The calm was short-lived, as Lutz took a handoff and swept around the corner to his left on the third down play, barreling into the end zone for the go-ahead score.
“Tyler Lutz is the unsung hero of western Mass. this year,” LaRose said. “ I think people overlook his talent. He’s been big for us all year and he came through for us in a huge situation.”
Frontier had 35 seconds to work with but the Athol defense came up huge one final time. After an incompletion by Frontier quarterback Myles Freeman on first down from the Athol 33, 290-pound Red Raider defensive tackle Trevor Curtis broke through the line on second down and leveled Freeman for a sack. On third down, Freeman was forced to again scramble and he managed to run for 15 yards but was tackled, ending the game.
Things looked good for Frontier early on, as Worthley recovered a fumble on Athol’s opening possession, and the Red Hawks marched quickly down the field to set up the game’s first touchdown. The first two Frontier plays from scrimmage saw Stephen Worthley run for 19 yards, and Landry run for 39, setting up Frontier with a first-and-goal situation, and on third down Worthley took it in from 1-yard out. The conversion run failed, but Frontier had a 6-0 lead.
Athol looked like it might score on its next possession, moving the ball to the Frontier 3, but a fumbled snap was recovered by Worthley at the 5. The team’s went on to trade possessions, and Frontier nearly scored early in the second quarter, as it marched to the Athol 6. On a third-and-5 play from the 6, it looked like Seth Gewanter fumbled, and Lutz came up with the ball and was in the process of what looked like a 94-yard return for a touchdown, but one official ruled Gewanter down and blew the play dead, which drew the ire of the vocal Athol crowd. Athol’s defense held on fourth down to end the threat.
Frontier did manage to punch in its second touchdown of the game just before halftime, as the Hawks went on a 13-play, 59-yard drive that ended with Gewanter’s 1-yard score that put the Hawks up 12-0 at the break.
But the second half belonged to the Red Raiders’ defense, which allowed just two Frontier first downs in the second half, and thwarted a Frontier offense that was averaging 46 points per game. Landry finished with 125 yards on 15 carries, but the Athol defense held Worthley to just 26 yards on 10 carries, and Gewanter to 35 yards on 12 hauls.
Casella led the Athol backfield that finished with nearly 300 yards on the ground. Lutz collected 77 yards on 14 carries, and Nelson added 72 yards on 15 carries.
The win puts Athol in great position to make the WMass Division IV playoffs due to a strong independent schedule, but the Red Raiders have another big task in front of them as they look to take down another unbeaten team next week when Turners Falls High School travels to O’Brien Field Friday night at 7. Frontier will try to right the ship on Friday night when it makes another trip east on Route 2 to the Woodward Complex in Orange to face Mahar Regional School at 7.