BRAINTREE – After two weeks of coming out on the short end, St. Mary’s was primed to go down to Archbishop Williams and come back home with a victory.Mission accomplished.Led by the afterburner duo of Ryan Barrows and Todd Collier, the Spartans vanquished the much-bigger Bishops, 22-18, to raise their record to 5-3.It was hard to pick between Barrows and Collier for star of the game. At one point in the third quarter, each had 65 yards on 10 carries. But in the end, Collier – with a late 48-yard run for a crucial first down that effectively ended the game – out-dueled his teammate, 125 yards to 93.”All our backs ran with determination,” said coach Matt Durgin, who saw his team take a seemingly insurmountable 22-12 lead with 3:29 to go before Williams got a quick strike on the very next possession to pull within four. Not only that, Williams then recovered the onside kick to provide plenty of anxious moments coming down the stretch.But as it had done for almost the entire game, St. Mary’s defense held.”I can’t say enough about (the defense),” Durgin said. “(Williams) scored off a couple of big plays, but other than that, we kept them at bay. We got good pressure up front, and made some big plays.”None of them were bigger than the one Collier made on Williams’ second-to-last possession, on a third-down play, when he dove to knock the ball loose from Williams’ Elvin Souffrant. Had the Bishops’ back caught the ball, it would have been a clear six.”Collier,” said Durgin, “has plenty of presence of mind. He plays just like he practices.”St. Mary’s played ball control to perfection in the first half, and went into the locker room leading 14-12. It could have been an entirely different half. The Spartans fumbled on the goal line; Souffrant returned the kickoff after St. Mary’s first score 90 yards for a touchdown; and Williams scored again with no time left on the clock on a 40-yard Hail Mary pass from quarterback Tom Fitzpatrick to Souffrant.In between all that, however, St. Mary’s had the clear territorial advantage. After a lengthy drive ended in a fumble on the one-yard line, St. Mary’s stopped Williams on a fourth-down play, and got the ball back on the Williams 37. Six plays later, Nick Day ran in from the nine for the score, with Steve Carroll adding the two-point conversion.Before everyone settled down, Souffrant picked up a muffed kickoff and eluded three would-be tacklers before outrunning everyone to the end zone, and the score was suddenly 8-6.St. Mary’s answered that shock with another long drive, starting from its own 33 and reaching the end zone 10 plays later, with Collier taking it in from the seven. The rush failed and it was 14-6.Another Spartan fumble, with 21.4 seconds to go in the half, gave Williams a shot from the St. Mary’s 37. After three straight incompletions, Fitzpatrick reared back and threw up a prayer to the end zone. Somehow, Souffrant managed to outjump three St. Mary’s defenders and come down with the ball. However, the pass failed, and the teams went into the break with St. Mary’s clinging to a 14-12 lead.It stayed that way through the third quarter as neither team could do too much. Williams closed all the gaps that made St. Mary’s running game successful, and the Spartan defense bent quite a bit, but didn’t break.With 3:29 left in the game, Barrows broke through for a stumbling 27-yard TD run and it looked as if that was the game. However, Fitzpatrick hit Alex Furtado on a 10-yarder across the middle, and Furtado never stopped running until he reached the end zone for a 75-yard TD run.Williams recovered the onside kick, but stalled – after four incompletions – on the St. Mary’s 33. From there, St. Mary’s ran out the clock ? with much assistance from Collier’s 48-yard run on the next-to-the last play of the game.