TURNERS FALLS – In this battle between a ground and air attack, the ground game won — but not by much.
The Frontier Regional School football team withstood an outstanding passing performance by Turners Falls High School junior quarterback Kyle Dodge, and rode the legs of its full-house backfield to a 33-21 Intercounty League football win on Senior Night at Bourdeau Field Friday.
“That kid’s got a good arm and he can throw it,” Frontier senior running back Aaron Landry said of Dodge. “He definitely had a great game, but our pass defense needs to tighten up a bit.”
Dodge, who went 9 for 21 passing for 246 yards and one interception, agreed: “The receivers are running great routes and making big plays. We’re just doing our thing, playing together as a team and it’s working out.”
There were a lot of great individual performances on both sides of the ball, but on the stat sheet this one very much boiled down to a battle between Dodge’s arm and the legs of Landry, who came into the game needing 290 yards to reach 1,000 on the season. He ended up 18 yards short, rushing for 272 yards on 23 carries and scoring five touchdowns.
Both teams came out firing from the opening kickoff, with Turners scoring first on its second drive when Dodge rifled a ball down the middle of the field to a sprinting Andy Craver (two catches, 147 yards) for a 66-yard touchdown. Tyler Lavin hit the point-after kick to make it 7-0. Frontier answered two plays later when Landry ran it up the gut for a 48-yard touchdown. The Red Hawks conversion run came up short, keeping the score 7-6.
Turners extended the lead on the next series when Dodge hooked up with sophomore Marcus Sanders (16 carries, 50 yards) for a 53-yard touchdown pass. Another Lavin kick made the score 14-6, a lead that would be narrowed on Frontier’s next play from scrimmage, when senior Steve Worthley (16 carries, 93 yards) ran it in for a 43-yard touchdown. The Red Hawks once again failed on the two-point conversion, keeping the score 14-12.
Frontier took the lead back for good early in the second quarter on a 17-yard Landry touchdown run. The Red Hawks scored again with 32 seconds left in the half on an 18-yard Landry counter run. Worthley hit the two-point conversion run to make it 26-14 at the half.
Turners backed off the pass and began to run the ball more to start of the third quarter but got only as far as the Frontier 40 before the drive stalled. Four plays later, Landry was in the Turners end zone again with a 30-yard touchdown run. Matt Hildreth split the uprights with the point-after kick to make the score 33-14.
On any ordinary night, that might have been the final dagger, but Dodge and the Powertowners had no intention of going down without a fight.
After recovering a Frontier fumble on third-and-goal from inside the 1, Turners managed to work the ball out to its own 19, with a little help from a 15-yard Red Hawk pass-interference penalty. From there, Dodge uncorked another long bomb that ended up in Craver’s hands for an 81-yard touchdown pass.
“Our pass coverage is either amazing or terrible, but nowhere in between,” Frontier lineman and senior captain Matt Carlson said. “We’re either locked down or committing pass interference penalties or giving up three passing touchdowns like we did tonight.”
Another Lavin extra point made the score 33-21. Turners then recovered an onside kick on the 50 and began to march into Frontier territory, working it down to the Red Hawk 11 before a Dodge screen pass on fourth-and-six fell short, forcing a turnover on downs.
Turners got another break when it blocked a Worthley punt and recovered the ball at the Frontier. But any comeback hopes were dashed on the next play when Frontier’s Ito McMillan intercepted a Dodge pass, which gave the Red Hawks the ball and allowed them to run out the clock and escape with a hard-fought win.
“I was pleased with the effort tonight,” Turners Coach Chris Lapointe said. “I’m obviously not happy with a loss, but we did our best.”
Frontier will try to shore up its pass defense in preparation for a Friday-night showdown with high-powered Easthampton High School, while Turners Falls travels across town a week from today to take on the Franklin County Technical School.