ATHOL — It’s gotta be the shoes?
Any decent footwear would have come in handy on the frozen track of Thomas J. O’Brien Field Thursday morning. Yet Mahar Regional School got the early jump wearing its sneakers, while Athol High School scuffled in its football cleats, and the Senators also got a standout defensive effort to power their way to a 28-0 Thanksgiving Day whitewash victory.
Lucas Seney and Jon Gariepy each ran for a pair of touchdowns and surpassed the 100-yard rushing mark to pace the Senators (4-7), who finished the season on a four-game winning streak and won the Thanksgiving Day matchup for the first time since 2013.
In bone-chilling, wind-lashed conditions, and on a surface approximating newly set concrete, Mahar went out to a 14-0 halftime lead and held Athol to one first down (via a penalty) and minus-18 yards of total offense through the first 22 minutes of play. For the day, the Senators outgained the Red Raiders 252-51.
“I couldn’t be happier for them. We were 0-7, and they never quit,” said longtime Mahar head coach Jim Woodward, who finished Season 1 of his second tour of duty with the Senators, following 30 seasons in charge from 1982 through 2011. “Winning four in a row, and to win this one especially … We could have lost them all and won this one, and it would have been a successful year. We stuck to our guns, stayed with fundamentals and finally found what was going to work for us. I think they developed a purpose, and the end result is what we have here today.”
Athol wrapped up its season at 3-8. The Red Raiders had posted a 16-0 shutout win at Mahar back in Week 3 of the regular season, but never could get themselves untracked Thursday.
“(Mahar) had a mission. It was five years since they won, and they came out and outplayed us,” said Raiders head coach Bill LaRose. “The field conditions weren’t conducive for our offense. We switched from cleats to sneakers at halftime, but that didn’t really change the tenor of the game. They were the better team today, and I have to tip my hat to them.
“This year’s offense was pretty good at times. We scored (36) against Greenfield, we put (26) against Turners Falls and Frontier, both playoff teams. We’ve got to tighten up our tackling and go back to basics. Blocking and tackling is still what wins games, and we didn’t do enough of that this year.”
How tough were the conditions? On Athol’s first series, the Raiders’ Mason Barrieau slipped while trying to punt and touched his knee down, causing a 10-yard loss and giving Mahar the ball at the Athol 20. Two plays later, Gariepy lost his footing and the ball, recovered by the Raiders’ Joe Gray at the 23.
The hosts couldn’t move it and punted to give Mahar a short field at the Athol 41. Six plays later, just after Athol jumped offside on fourth-and-3 to give the Senators a first down at the 14, Gariepy took a toss from Noaha Chabot and swept the right side for the lead score. His two-point conversion run failed, leaving Mahar ahead 6-0 with 2:43 to play in the first.
The next time they had the ball, the Senators went long-field, driving 71 yards in 13 plays over 6 1/2 minutes. Seney carried for three double-digit gains during the drive, then capped it with a 1-yard plunge with 5:40 to go in the half. Chabot flipped the conversion pass to a leaping Charlie Barnes in the back right corner of the end zone.
Before the break, each team lost a fumble, with Mahar’s Dominic Negron and Athol’s Dylan Castine coming up with the recoveries. Mahar took its 14-0 lead into the half with 125 total yards to Athol’s minus-18.
The Senators’ Evan Johnston then jumped on a squib kickoff at midfield to get the visitors started in the second half. Seney took a handoff 31 yards on the counter to lift Mahar into a 20-0 lead with 9:05 left in the third. Chabot’s conversion pass was picked off in the end zone by Barrieau, but the whistle blew before any chance at a return and a potential defensive two-point conversion.
Gariepy finished off the win in the first minute of the final quarter, running it in from 5 yards out. Chabot’s two-point conversion run made it a 28-0 game.
Athol’s deepest advance came midway through the fourth, when the Raiders turned the ball over on downs at the Mahar 28.
With a game-high 112 yards on 12 carries, Seney was named the Mahar Boosters Most Valuable Player. Gariepy wasn’t far behind with 20 carries for 105 yards and Joey Brozell added 37 yards on the ground for the Senators.
Castine topped the Athol rushers with 18 yards while Barrieau, a 1,048-yard rusher entering the day, managed 7 yards on 11 carries. Barrieau took home the Athol Boosters MVP award. The Raiders’ quarterback tandem of Caleb Cox and Riley Paine combined for 2-of-10 passing for 35 yards with an interception.
Mahar’s Adam Clement and Athol’s Connor Arpide won the O’Brien Family Awards as the game’s outstanding linemen.
“We watched that game a couple of times in preparation for this,” said Woodward of the Sept. 21 loss to Athol. “I even used highlight film from 2003 — you could hear a pin drop last night while they were watching that. I’m very happy. These seniors have paid their dues.”
Athol still maintains a commanding 51-31-1 lead in 83 all-time season-ending games.