St. Mary’s has enough to hold off Amesbury

AMESBURY – After three explosive offensive performances to start the season, undefeated St. Mary’s got defensive while completing a three-game sweep of Cape Ann Small opponents with an 18-7 decision of Amesbury Saturday afternoon at Landry Memorial Stadium.St. Mary’s18Amesbury7 The Spartans (4-0) grabbed a 12-0 lead in the game’s first seven minutes on a pair of Nick Day touchdowns – a game-opening 89-yard kickoff return and a 53-yard dash to cap a four-play, 85-yard drive on St. Mary’s first possession. From that point Amesbury (1-3) controlled both the clock and tempo with a methodical ground attack.Despite spending lengthy stretches on the field, the St. Mary’s defense broke only once. Xavier Gonzales, at the 20, and Corey Bartlett, at the 22, stopped two promising Amesbury marches with first-half fumble recoveries. In the second half, two Spartans’ stands turned the ball over on downs at their own 35 and their own 14, the latter with 7:34 to play.Junior safety Todd Collier delivered a reasonable impression of Bob Sanders throughout, imprinting himself on Amesbury’s backs and receivers with no less than a half-dozen jaw-rattling hits.”This was a good win on the road. Amesbury played us really tough. We had a feeling they would be very emotional and they were,” said St. Mary’s coach Matt Durgin. “When we needed it, the defense made some nice plays and came up with key stops. Todd was flying around on defense.”Day fielded the opening kickoff at his 11, made one subtle move to the left, found a seam and galloped 89 yards for a 6-0 lead 11 seconds into the game. Then, four plays after Gonzalez recovered CJ Collin’s fumble at the St. Mary’s 22 on Amesbury’s first possession, Day swept the right side, followed a convoy of blockers and outraced the pursuit for a 53-yard score.”Nick got us jump-started and we really needed that. This was a really close game and a good test against a good football team,” said Durgin.Amesbury answered Day’s second score with an 11-play, 60-yard drive that consumed 4:38 and had only one play of longer than 10 yards, a 14-yard connection from quarterback Tyler Lay to wideout Nick Croce that set up Collin’s five-yard scoring burst. Croce’s PAT pulled Amesbury to within 12-7.St. Mary’s had one more big play in the arsenal as Collier bounced around the right side from 45 yards for an 18-7 lead with 5:48 left in the half.St. Mary’s, bothered by penalties and a rejuvenated Amesbury defense, sputtered during a scoreless second half and managed just 98 yards. A clock-killing 71-yard drive came up empty on a lost fumble at the Amesbury 15 with two minutes left.”That was a great drive at the end, but we have to finish those off,” Durgin said.