SOUTH DEERFIELD — “Just another night at the office” for the Frontier Regional School football team usually means bad news for whomever happens to be standing on the opposing sideline. And Friday night was no exception.
The Red Hawks put up 419 yards in total offense and got five touchdowns from Aaron Landry and another from Steve Worthley en route to a dominant 41-14 Intercounty League North win over Franklin County Technical School on Booster Night Friday in South Deerfield.
“It’s all about the line,” Landry said. “It’s all the blocking. These guys open up the holes for us and make it really easy.”
It certainly looked that way for most of the game, as the backfield tandem of Landry (14 carries, 101 yards) and Worthley (22 carries, 242 yards), along with quarterback Matt Hildreth (five carries, 44 yards), ran an off-tackle power offense at an Eagle team which clearly appeared outmatched pretty much from the opening snap.
“They run that offense well, and if we aren’t disciplined defensively, they are going to beat us up, and they did,” Franklin Tech Coach Joe Gamache said. “I think our effort was there, but not the execution.”
Frontier got on the board on its first series, an 11-play, 45-yard romp which chewed up four and a half minutes and ended with a 6-yard Landry touchdown run and a Worthley PAT run to make it 8-0.
Worthley extended the lead on the next series with a 75-yard touchdown run. Tech stopped the two-point run to keep the score 14-0. The Red Hawks extended the lead to 20-0 on a Landry 1-yard run early in the second quarter, but Tech answered with a Spencer Telega (11 carries, 68 yards) 21-yard touchdown run and a two-point conversion run by quarterback Seth Aldrich to make the score 20-8.
The Red Hawks added to the lead again on the next series, when Hildreth hit Landry with a 32-yard touchdown pass. The Worthley point-after run made the score 28-8 at halftime.
Despite the offensive success, the Red Hawks did have some problems, particularly with penalties. Frontier was flagged nine times for 75 yards in the game, including a late hit out of bounds on Aldrich, which turned what would have been a series-ending sack, into an automatic first down that extended the drive, which eventually ended with the Telega touchdown.
A Landry 7-yard touchdown run and a blocked PAT kick in the first series of the third quarter extended the Frontier lead to 34-8.
Defensively, Franklin Tech did a better job containing, if not stopping the Frontier run, late in the game. The Red Hawks also put forth a solid defensive effort, sacking Aldrich twice and intercepting him three times, twice by Hildreth, and once by Landry.
Tech scored again in the fourth quarter when sophomore back Bailey Young (13 carries, 41 yards) took it into the end zone from seven yards out to make it 34-14. Another Landry 6-yard run and a Hildreth point-after kick on the next series rounded out the scoring, creating the 41-14 final.
Frontier, which has now scored 35, 56 and 41 points in its last three games (all wins) looks to keep rolling on Friday when it travels to Turners Falls High School. Franklin Tech will try to regroup on Saturday when it hosts Athol High School.