Football: Josiah Little reaches 1,000 yards rushing for fourth straight year as Franklin Tech defeats Greenfield, 38-8 (PHOTOS)
Published: 10-18-2024 11:28 PM
Modified: 10-19-2024 12:00 AM |
TURNERS FALLS — With the milestone safely surpassed on only his second carry Friday night, Josiah Little and his Franklin Tech teammates could move on to the business of methodically grinding down Greenfield for their sixth win of the season.
Little entered the game needing only 10 rushing yards for 1,000 in his senior season, and got there right away with runs of 3 and 9 yards on Tech’s first drive. That 9-yarder, good for the first of his three touchdowns, came with 10:05 left in the first quarter and set the stage for Little’s 193-yard night, the clear highlight of the Eagles’ 38-8 thrashing of the Green Wave.
Tyler Yetter also had a pair of short touchdown runs for the unbeaten Eagles (6-0, 3-0 Intercounty North).
“Coming into the season, losing some of the guys we lost, we weren’t really sure where we were gonna be and how quickly some of these young guys could step up,” said Franklin Tech coach Joe Gamache. “We knew we had a lot of talent. It was just a matter of how quickly these guys could turn the corner. They jumped right into the fire, and they’ve been great.”
Franklin Tech used a great return on the opening kickoff to set up a short touchdown drive, then recovered an onside kick, and punched in a second touchdown to take a solid 16-0 lead barely seven minutes into the action. That jumped to 24-0 by halftime and set the hosts well on their way.
Maxon Brunette snapped off a 53-yard return to put Tech in business at the Greenfield 21, and Little and the Eagles were in the end zone four plays later. Yetter’s conversion pass to Ethan Smarr made it an 8-0 game.
Madix Whitman then covered Tech’s squibbed kickoff at the Greenfield 41 to begin a 9-play drive. Yetter’s 16-yard scramble got the Eagles down to the 2, and Yetter finished it off himself from there, followed by a two-point run by Little, as Tech went up 16-0 at the 4:41 mark.
Greenfield’s first three series of the first half ended in a loss on downs at the Tech 10, then a fumble recovered by the Eagles’ Brady Gancarz at the Greenfield 27, and a fumble lost to Tech’s Hunter Donahue at the Greenfield 45. Franklin Tech turned the first of those into an 11-play, 90-yard drive on which Little carried six times for 70 yards, the biggest a 41-yard pickup. Yetter went in from a yard away, then ran in the two-pointer, to make it 24-0.
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Mason Cummings threw for 60 yards in the first half for Greenfield, the biggest chunk of the Wave’s 85 yards of total offense at the half, but Tech nearly doubled that figure with 167 yards on its own.
Tech then forced a punt on Greenfield’s first series of the second half and took over at its own 49, from where Little took a counter handoff and sprinted 51 yards for his second score of the night. Yetter’s two-point run put Tech ahead 32-0 with 9:16 left in the third quarter.
Greenfield (2-4, 1-2 IL North) finally got on the board after a nearly seven-minute drive, helped along by rushes of 12 and 11 yards by Angel Politis and Cummings’ completions of 14 yards to Jon Breor and 14 yards to Erik Martineau. The Wave caught a break when Zaydrien Alamed’s seeming interception of Cummings was negated by a pair of offsetting penalties. Cummings finished it up with a 7-yard scoring run on a keeper up the gut, then flipped the two-point pass to Martineau to make it a 32-8 game with 2:21 to play in the third.
Little capped off his night at the end of a 53-yard drive, with a 6-yard run coming with 6:22 remaining. That put him at 193 yards on 24 carries and lifted his season total to 1,183.
“He’s been a workhorse for us for four years,” said Gamache. “This year, the line has done a great job opening up some holes for him, and that’s why he’s gotten there as quick as he has. His performance is a team goal as well. We talk about that a lot, because he doesn’t get that yardage without 10 guys that are blocking for him. We’ve got a lot of football left, and we’re hoping he stays healthy and continues to roll.”
Brunette added 38 yards on the ground, Yetter had 36, and Nathan Sabolevski 21 to contribute to Tech’s grand total of 285 rushing yards.
Cummings finished the night 7-of-13 passing for 84 yards, with Caleb Murray (38 yards) and Martineau (37) each grabbing a pair of receptions. Politis led Greenfield with 45 yards on 12 carries and Cummings ran for 23.
The Green Wave hosts Palmer in a 6 p.m. game Thursday at Veterans Memorial Field, while Franklin Tech goes on the road to Ware Friday at 7 p.m.