Saugus football team edges AC in three OTs

ARLINGTON – Sometimes, you just have to tell the story from the end and work backwards.Saugus’s 30-28 win over Arlington Catholic Saturday night, in three overtimes, is a good case in point. For although Shamir Guillaume ran for 167 yards and scored two touchdowns (including the game-winner in overtime No. 3), it was a couple of other plays – and people – who were just as vital to saving the Sachems’ bacon.To wit: If linebacker Ryan Kennedy doesn’t sack AC quarterback Aaron Swenson on the Cougars’ first play in OT, knocking him five yards backwards, we perhaps don’t have the two resulting sessions; and if Kennedy doesn’t stuff AC’s Pat O’Donnell on the Cougars’ third conversion attempt, we might still be playing.And ? if a rare Saugus pass, on a two-point conversion attempt, from David Witham doesn’t bounce off AC’s Peter Barsam and into the hands of the Sachems’ Alex Rivera, we might still be at Pierce Field too. Because that was the difference in the game.Saugus30Arlington Catholic28 “Sometimes,” said Saugus coach Mike Broderick, who hates the forward pass as much as St. Mary’s Matt Durgin does (perhaps even more), “it’s better to be lucky than to be good. Either way, I’m not going to do that too much (pass).”With Guillaume, he doesn’t have to. The senior back ran primarily between the tackles, and he earned every inch of those 167 yards. The Cougars didn’t give him any freebies.”I know,” said AC coach Serge Clivio, “he had a ton of yards. But I thought we contained him pretty well. He didn’t get off any long ones.”Guillaume had to run 28 times to get those yards (an average of just about six yards a carry).”My linemen just blocked really well for me,” said Guillaume. “All I thought about the whole game was not letting Coach down, because he comes from Arlington, and he’s done so much to help me these last three years.”The score was 14-14 heading into the fourth quarter and it stayed that way, even though Saugus had a golden chance to win it at the end of regulation. But the drive petered out with Zach Verrengia’s 32-yard field goal attempt having plenty of distance, but sailing wide right.”We were comfortable with him at that range,” said Broderick. “It just wasn’t to be.”In overtime, Saugus had the first crack and whiffed. So did the Cougars, thanks to Kennedy’s sack and thanks to Matt Catanzarini’s goal-line tackle of O’Donnell on fourth down (each team lines up at the 10, with four downs).On the next series, Jamey Conley went in from the four, and then caught a 2-pointer by Swenson and AC went up 22-14. Guillaume matched it, thundering in from the 10 on Saugus’ first play, and then taking it in again for the two points.The Sachems had first crack at it on third down, and, once again, it was Guillaume doing the honors from six yards out. When Rivera hauled in the conversion, it made the score 30-22.The Cougars waited until fourth down for Swenson to complete a pass to Alec Matys in the end zone, but Kennedy (leading a host of tacklers) was all over O’Donnell on AC’s conversion attempt to seal the win.Saugus jumped out in front, 14-0, with a first-quarter score by Guillaume (a 27-yard run) and a nine-yarder by Witham (Verrengia had both PATs).Bernard Lynch ran one in from five yards out, with O’Donnell catching Swenson’s conversion pass, to make it 14-8 by the half; and O’Donnell scored on a 6-yard jaunt, with the conversion attempt incomplete, to tie the score.