TURNERS FALLS — Drury High School may have been late in arriving to Saturday’s game, but it was Franklin County Technical School that didn’t show up at the very beginning, letting up a 56-yard pass completion on the very first play from scrimmage and a touchdown only 43 seconds into the action.
That early deficit stung the Eagles into an immediate response, as they struck back with a quick touchdown of their own and set the stage for a track meet of a first half that saw the teams put up a combined 52 points. From that point, though, the hosts shut out Drury until the game’s final minute and pulled away for a 47-26 assigned-game victory.
Dylan Mailloux had the biggest hand in Tech’s win, piling up 220 yards on 32 carries with four touchdowns. He surpassed the 1,000-yard mark for his senior season, ending the day with 1,056.
“He’s a true leader for us. He steps up, and we’re a much better team when he’s on the field,” said Eagles coach Joe Gamache. “The kids kind of rally around him. He has no problems being that workhorse. He’s battled some health issues this year with ankle injuries and missed some time. But he’s been healthy the last couple of weeks, and that’s made the offense flow a little better.”
Tech (4-5) ran for 306 yards as a team and also had quarterback Seth Aldrich to keep Drury honest, with an 8-of-13 passing day for 83 yards and a touchdown pass to Jared Bergmann.
Sophomore quarterback Obilio Rodriguez posted big numbers of his own for the Blue Devils (3-6), completing 14-of-29 passes for 223 yards and three scores with an interception, Thaylen Harrison had five receptions for a game-high 114 yards and a touchdown.
Rodriguez got the visitors started immediately with a 56-yard bomb to Harrison, who was stopped at the Tech 9. Two plays later, Rodriguez ran it in himself from the 2, with Jamal Beda adding the two-point conversion for an instant 8-0 Drury lead.
The Eagles began at midfield after Drury’s kickoff slid out of bounds, and Mailloux promptly snapped off runs of 13, 18, and 15 yards, the last for a score. His two-point conversion run made it an 8-8 game only 2:05 into the action.
Rodriguez then got warmed up with passes of 17 yards to Nate Hillard and 26 yards to Hayden Bird to get the Blue Devils close. On first-and-goal from the Tech 8, he found Harrison on a throwback screen for a touchdown. Beda came up short on the two-point try, but Drury led 14-8 with 7:47 to play in the first.
Brooks Robinson then recovered a Tech fumble to give Drury possession at its own 40, but the Blue Devils were forced to punt. That sprung Franklin Tech on a 60-yard drive, capped by a 9-yard TD run by Spencer Telega and a conversion pass from Aldrich to Caileb Milton, putting the Eagles ahead to stay at 16-14.
After another Drury punt, the Eagles went 68 yards in 12 plays, with Mailloux picking up 33 of those yards. His 1-yard TD dive and another Aldrich-to-Milton conversion made it a 24-14 game with five minutes left in the half.
Beda’s 30-yard kickoff return and a personal-foul call against Tech put Drury in great shape at the Eagles’ 40. From there, Rodriguez threw his second TD pass, this one for 19 yards to Zach Yeaton, to pull the Blue Devils within 24-20 at the 2:41 mark.
Franklin Tech still had time to mount a 60-yard drive that included a fourth-and-5 conversion on a 19-yard gain by Telega (51 rushing yards). With only 5.6 seconds on the clock and the ball at the Drury 5, Aldrich found Bergmann in the front right corner of the end zone. Mailloux then ran in the two-pointer for a 32-20 Eagles lead at the break.
“It was a little scary, the way we started out,” said Gamache. “We gave up the big play right away, we found ourselves in a hole, we were able to answer and then unable to answer on the defensive side again. But after that, the kids really started doing a lot of the things we worked on during the week. They showed a lot of determination. Once we started getting into the flow defensively, we played pretty well after that.”
The scoring pace slackened considerably from there. Drury’s Hillard recovered a squib kickoff to begin the second half, but the Blue Devils failed on downs at the Tech 34. After an Eagles punt buried the Blue Devils at their own 8, Rodriguez was hit in his end zone by Tech’s Dalton Wesoloski and lost the football, but Harrison managed to scoop the loose ball and ran it out for a 4-yard gain. Rodriguez suffered an apparent right arm injury and came out temporarily in favor of Bird, who promptly hit Harrison for a 27-yard completion.
Bird faked a punt on fourth-and-10 and threw incomplete, giving the Eagles the ball at the Drury 35. That began a string of three straight losses on downs. Tech came out of it with possession at Drury’s 39. After a 24-yard gain by Tyler Sakowicz and Mailloux’s 12-yarder, Mailloux punched in his third score from the 3. Bailey Young’s extra-point kick made it a 39-20 Eagle lead with 10:34 to go in the game.
Drury couldn’t answer until Taylor Fortini recovered a Tech fumble at the Blue Devils’ 24, starting a 13-play, 76-yard scoring drive. The Blue Devils faced fourth-and-8 at the Eagles’ 29 when Rodriguez lofted a pass down the left sideline to a heavily covered Beda, who made the catch between defenders at the left pylon with 53.3 seconds to go to make it 39-26.
Tech wrapped things up on Mailloux’s 12-yard TD run and a Sakowicz two-pointer in the final six seconds.
The Eagles learned Sunday that they’ll host Belchertown High School (4-4) in their Week 10 assigned game. The game was originally set to be played at Belchertown, but later switched to a home game for Tech, Saturday at 1 p.m.