EAST MARLBOROUGH – With just a single win in its first six games, and trailing by two touchdowns midway through the fourth quarter, the Avon Grove football team could have packed it in and accepted a road loss at Unionville. But the Red Devils refused to accept anything and proceeded to stage a miraculous down-to-the-wire comeback.
Coming off three straight blowout losses to excellent opponents, Avon Grove did get a couple big breaks on Friday. But the Devils stayed with it and capitalized on the good fortune to beat the Longhorns 29-28 on a TD and a two-point conversion in the final minute of play. Both came courtesy of senior runner Xander Binstead.
“I am so proud of the kids and of this coaching staff,” said Avon Grove head coach Joe Coffey. “Perseverance pays off.
“What anybody thought heading into this game didn’t matter to us. All that matters are the kids in our locker room and the coaches on the staff.”
With the win in its Ches-Mont South Division opener, the Devils’ improve to 1-0 (2-5 overall) and halted a four-game losing skid. Unionville falls to 1-1 (4-3 overall) and will play at Kennett next Friday in the always intense Battle of Route 52.
“This is tough to swallow,” said Longhorns’ head coach Tim Murphy. “We have to fix our mistakes because we have a big one next week.”
It was the second one-point setback of the season for Unionville (the other was at Bishop Shanahan), and all three losses have been by a total of seven points.
“We’ve had some real tough ones this season, but we are always in the games and our players never give up,” Murphy said.
The ’Horns scored 21 consecutive points in the second half to open a 28-14 lead with 6:06 remaining. But on the ensuing series, Binstead gained 41 yards on a run that set up an eight-yard score by teammate Jose Sabastro that sliced the lead in half with 5:00 on the clock.
A 32-yard keeper by Unionville quarterback Tommy McGinnis, plus a personal foul, moved the Longhorns into field goal range, but Ryan Keaveney’s 43-yarder with 2:29 remaining bounced off the crossbar and back into the end zone.
“If there was some sort of a higher up plan there, heck, we’ll take it,” Coffey said.
“Football can humble you very quickly,” Murphy added. “But it’s also a game of inches. If that field goal is two inches higher and it goes in, we probably aren’t talking about a loss.”
Instead, Avon Grove had new life, and brought in junior quarterback Nate Moerder for starter Nick Walraven for the first time. Moerder hit receiver Joe DiCrecchio for 11 and then found tight end Dylan Laganelli for a 29-yard in-traffic catch to a one-yard line. That’s when Binstead lined up in the wildcat formation, took a direct shotgun snap and bulled his way into the end zone with 32.1 seconds to go.
After a timeout, the Devils lined up in the same formation, and Binstead converted the same play for the game-winning two-point conversion.
“It’s what we call our heavy package,” Coffey said.
“It was the exact same play,” Binstead confirmed. “Both times I just put my head down and tried to get into the end zone.”
It still wasn’t quite over, however. An 18-yard run by McGinnis moved the ball into Avon Grove territory, but on the final play of the game, his pass to the end zone hit the hands of receiver Hayden Wenturine, but was broken up by a couple defenders.
In all, the Devils marched 80 yards in eight plays to win it. And Coffey had already decided if his team scored a TD, it would try to win it before going to overtime.
“We were not running out of gas,” he said. “As soon as we stopped (Unionville) and got the ball back, we decided we were going to go for two. The kids wanted to do it, and they executed it.
“Both (Moerder and Walraven) are talented quarterbacks and we’ve been working them in and out in different situations. We felt we needed to go with Moerder and he stepped up. And Laganelli made a big play – what a great catch.”
The Longhorns marched 82 yards on the game’s opening possession, with McGinnis covering the final four yards. It took a dozen plays and all 12 were on the ground. But at some point late in the drive, Unionville’s explosive runner Brody McLaughlin left the game with an apparent foot injury and did not return. That was lucky break No. 2 for Avon Grove.
It changed the complexion of the contest immediately. On the ’Horns next series, a McGinnis fumble was recovered by the Devils’ Jake Stein near midfield. Binstead later took a double-handoff and went 26 yards to the end zone to tie the score.
A short Unionville punt just before the end of the first half gave the Red Devils the ball at the Unionville 35, and three plays later Sabastro registered a 17-yard TD run with 48.3 seconds on the clock to make it 14-7 at the intermission.
In the third quarter, with backup runner Alex Gonzalez and McGinnis filling the void left by McLaughlin’s exit, the Longhorns tied it 14-14 on the first of two TDs by Gonzalez. And soon after Henry Turner pounced on a fumble, McGinnis scored on a seven-yard keeper to put Unionville back in the lead early in the final period.
Another forced turnover – this time an interception by Reid Cassidy – led to another score by Gonzalez to make it 28-14 and set up the finish.
“We understand this was a big win. What resilience from this group,” Coffey said.
“The way (Avon Grove) was running the ball, they were going to grind the clock down and go for the win,” Murphy said when asked about the game-winner. “That’s what I would have done.”
Sabastro rolled up 155 of the Devils’ 287 yards on the ground, and Binstead chipped in with 70 more. Avon Grove’s only two pass completions came in the final drive.
“Unionville is a great team and we knew we would have to play hard no matter what happened,” Binstead said. “We’ve played a lot of tough opponents and we were ready today.
“We believed in ourselves. We were telling each other to dig deep in that fourth quarter – that there was still time and it’s not over until the clock says 0:00.”
McGinnis paced the Longhorns with 132 yards on the ground, and Gonzalez added 54.
“We try to hang our hat on running the ball and stopping the run,” Murphy said. “We didn’t do that on defense, and that gave (Avon Grove) some life.”
Avon Grove 29, Unionville 28
Avon Grove 0 14 0 15 – 29
Unionville 7 0 7 14 – 28
Scoring
U – McGinnis 4 run (Keaveney kick)
AG – Binstead 26 run (Van Kleek kick)
AG – Sebastro 17 run (Van Kleek kick)
U – Gonzalez 20 run (Keaveney kick)
U – McGinnis 7 run (Keaveney kick)
U – Gonzalez 2 run (Keaveney kick)
AG – Sabastro 8 run (Van Kleek kick)
AG – Binstead 1 run (Binstead run)
Team statistics AG U
First downs 16 20
Rushing yards 287 245
Passing yards 40 50
Total yards 327 295
Complete-Att-Int 2-8-1 5-11-0
Fumbles-lost 2-1 1-1
Punts-ave. 1-21 2-28
Penalties 6-72 9-60
Individual statistics
RUSHING – AG: Sabastro 26-155, 2 TDs; Walraven 9-40; Binstead 4-70, 2 TDs; DiCrecchio 3-22. U:n McLaughlin 5-39; McGinnis 22-132, 2 TDs; Puleo 6-20; Gonzalez 14-54, 2 TDs.
PASSING – AG: Walraven 0-6, Int; Moerder 2-2, 40 yards, TD. U: McGinnis 5-11, 50 yards.
RECEIVING – AG: DiCrecchio 1-11; Laganelli 1-29. U: Puleo 3-16; Wenturine 2-24.
Interceptions – U: Cassidy.
Sacks – AG: Binstead.
Source: Berkshire mont
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