Sachems fall short in epic battle

WINTHROP – Where do you even start?The Saugus football team ran for more than 500 yards. Running back Dan Cacciola had 381 of them all by himself, including touchdown runs of 70, 75, 99 and 65 yards.Yet …Winthrop?s Dylan Driscoll ended up as the hero Saturday as he brought the Vikings back from a 21-point third-quarter deficit to a 44-41 win at Miller Field in a game that had everything you could imagine.?Wow,” said Saugus coach Mike Broderick. “That?s about the best way to describe it.”?That was incredible,” said Winthrop coach Sean Driscoll. “I cannot put into words how proud I am of my team for fighting through it … the deficit, the 90-plus heat. We have some senior leadership on this team, and it showed today.”One of those seniors is Driscoll, who shrugged off two and a half quarters of struggling to put on a clinic in the last 16 and a half minutes. He ended up with 200 yards passing through the air, and connected on touchdown passes of 26 and 18 yards to Zach Deeb and Jon Gonzalez, respectively, in the fourth quarter, the second of which put the Vikings out front, 36-35, after they?d fallen behind 35-14 late in the third period.Then, after Cacciola wrapped up his historic day with a 65-touchdown run that put Saugus back in front, 41-35, Driscoll calmly led the Vikings back downfield before running the game-winning touchdown in with only 13 seconds left … and then rushing for the conversion.?I thought he took over there at the end,” said Driscoll, the quarterback?s father. “Once he figured out what was going on, he played very well.]?But I have to say,” Driscoll said, “that Saugus is very tough to defend. They do so many things, and they have athletes. That is going to be a very tough team to defend.”The first half was a mere prelude … a warmup act … the salad before the meal … even though Winthrop got an 85-yard return on the opening kick by Reise Turransky to take a 7-0 lead; and Cacciola gave an indication of what kind of a day it was going to be for him by answering with a 70-yard TD run.Saugus threatened to run away in the third quarter. After Seth Roy rambled for 62 yards on the second play of the quarter, quarterback Justin Winn finished it off with a 2-yard run, and it was 21-14, Saugus. After the Sachems recovered a fumble, Cacciola was at it again, this time for a 75-yard score; and then, when Winthrop downed its own punt on the Saugus 1-yard line, Cacciola took a handoff and sprinted 99 yards for the improbable score that made it 35-14.However, Turransky scored a crucial TD with under a minute to go in the quarter, rushing for 24 yards to close the gap to 15 (35-20, as the conversion kick failed).?That was a big score,” acknowledged Driscoll. “It was huge. Gave us a lot of momentum.”And Winthrop took advantage of it, with Driscoll connecting with Deeb and Gonzalez for two scoring passes, with Gonzalez adding both 2-point conversions.But it wasn?t over. Cacciola had one more long run in him — this one for 65 yards. But when the exuberant Saugus sideline erupted in celebration, the team was flagged 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.?It is very irritating,” acknowledged Broderick. “They?d just scored and they were happy. And their kids were doing the same thing down the other end when they got that conversion, so I don?t know.?It was a mistake,” he said, “and that?s what killed us. Mistakes and penalties. We thought we had the game. We just couldn?t finish it off.”But Winthrop did. With Saugus kicking off from deep in its own territory, Driscoll took over from the 50, and had the Vikings in the end zone in 10 plays.