GREAT BARRINGTON — Visiting Frontier owned the trenches and won a war of attrition in besting Monument Mountain on Friday night.
A couple moments may have altered the Spartans fate, but ultimately the Red Hawks left Berkshire County with a tidy 33-0 victory in an Intercounty League North contest.
Frontier (1-1, 1-0) hit the ground running, literally, dominating the line of scrimmage in the first half. Coach Don Gordon’s Red Hawks scored on a pair of 12-play drives to stake themselves a 14-0 advantage with 8 minutes, 36 seconds to go in the second quarter.
Frontier took the opening kickoff and needed 12 plays — 11 rushes — to travel 80 yards into the Spartan end zone. Ito McMillan, who finished with 132 yards on the ground and three total touchdowns, punched in the ice-breaker from seven-yards out with 6:36 on the first-quarter clock.
It was a strong statement from a team that managed just one score in a tight 8-7 opening loss to Belchertown last week.
“We worked some things out this week, moved some people around, but I think we got some good chemistry going today, it worked pretty good,” said Gordon. “That’s what we like, everybody doing their job.”
A holding penalty stalled Monument’s opening drive, and Frontier took the punt at its own 14. From there, it was another 12 running plays before Josh Semaski barreled into the end zone for another touchdown. Frontier racked up 11 first downs on its first two drives. Monument Mountain, on the other hand, had just six until its final drive of the game.
Despite the final score, the Spartans were far from out of things at that point. Coach Martin’s offense got excellent field position off a Frontier punt later in the second quarter.
The Spartans rode Jack O’Brien and Ashton Aloisi into the red zone and down to the six-yard line with a minute to go before the half. With no timeouts remaining, things got rushed, and O’Brien’s two tries from the 4 were both stuffed by Frontier, the second of which came on fourth down as time expired.
“Just taking care of business,” said Gordon. “Everybody has a responsibility. Down linemen filled the gaps, linebackers came up, played with emotion. That’s what you need.”
The Red Hawks went into the half with a 14-point advantage, and kept right on chugging to open the third. After a Monument failed onside-kick attempt, Frontier went 52 yards in 10 plays to get McMillan his second score and the 20-0 lead.
Monument faced a fourth-and-one on its own 33, electing to punt with 5:30 left in the third. The kick sailed into McMillan’s arms at the Frontier 29. The senior speedster burst through the first line of gunners and broke to the left sideline, before blasting the rest of his 71 yards to the end zone for the back-breaker.
Semaski scored once more in the third quarter after a fumble recovery set up a short field. Jack Vecellio got to the quarterback on Monument’s next drive and John Semaski came away with the loose ball. Josh Semaski capped his 92-yard day with a nine-yard scoring plunge.