Krause: Swampscott avoids pitfalls, moves on

After watching the Patriots struggle with the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday night, you had an uneasy feeling that something similar would happen to the Swampscott football team last night.The Big Blue took a 6-0 lead late into the second quarter, but things had hardly gone swimmingly. The passing attack – which led Swampscott to cruise through the season with a 10-1 record heading into last night’s Division 3 playoff game against Arlington Catholic – was stuck in mud as thick as the turf in Pittsburgh Monday night. Worse, Arlington Catholic was marching downfield threatening to score a touchdown – and perhaps take a 7-6 lead into the locker room.But Swampscott found itself just in time. First, the Big Blue made a crucial fourth-down stop at their own 11. Then, they clicked through the air, really, for the first time in the half. Peter Kinchley found Kyle Shonio for a 13-yard screen pass. And after a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty assessed to the Cougars, Swampscott had a first down at the AC 39 with 23 seconds left.Kinchley ran for six more yards, and then threw an incompletion that landed out of bounds with two seconds left on the clock. He had time for one more play, and it was the standard “Hail Mary” that saw a swarm of Arlington Catholic and Big Blue players jump for the ball.Somehow, Swampscott’s Justin Mitchell came down with it.”When I landed, I expected someone to hit me, but nobody did,” Mitchell said. “And I just walked into the end zone.”To say the play was huge is understating the issue. It was simply the play that turned the game around.”Sure it was huge,” Swampscott coach Steve Dembowski said. “They were on their way down to at least tie it, and probably take the lead.”We make the stop, and then we go, what, 89 yards in a minute? That’s the eighth time this season we’ve scored in the last two minutes of the half.”You can take the personal statistics and do with them what you want. A statistic like that tells a better story. It indicates that whatever else is going on with them, the Big Blue know how to put the hammer down when the time comes.Despite the 33-7 final score (Swampscott now goes on to the Super Bowl against Medfield Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at Gillette Stadium), this game was in doubt in the second quarter. Swampscott sliced down the field on its first possession, but stalled out deep in AC territory.”That was probably my fault,” said Dembowski. “I could have maybe called better plays down there.”Swampscott has an underrated running game, but on this night, it rose to the top as it netted 282 yards. With the passing game off-kilter, the Blue picked a good time to get the ground game going.”The line just was incredible,” said Kyle Shonio, who was part of a devastating one-two punch (98 yards) along with Ilya Levin (138).Still, when Swampscott needed the big play, Kinchley and Mitchell came up with it.Mitchell, Kinchley and the rest of the seniors were eighth-graders the last time Swampscott made the Super Bowl (2003). For Mitchell, these are very, very good times.”It’s awesome,” he said. “Playing at Gillette Stadium Saturday? What could be better? I’m just riding the wave as far as it goes.”Steve Krause is sports editor of The Item.