LYNN — Last year, when the St. Mary’s football team won its sectional final over Stoneham, James Brumfield came off the bench to lead the way after running back Calvin Johnson got hurt.
This year, Brumfield — who also won the state decathlon championship last spring — is a featured player for the Spartans. And he still saved his best for the most important game of the season — to date, at least. Brumfield, named the game’s MVP, ran the ball 21 times Friday night at Manning Field for 232 yards and three touchdowns as the No.1 Spartans throttled No. 2 Brighton, 42-6, to win their second straight MIAA Division 7 North title.
The Spartans will play Mashpee next week (date, time and neutral site TBA) for the right to take part in the Division 7 Super Bowl on the weekend of Dec. 1-2 at Gillette Stadium.
“He (Brumfield) has been doing this for two years,” said St. Mary’s coach Matt Durgin. “Last year against Stoneham, we had some injury situations, and he came in and led us.”
“This feels great,” Brumfield said. “We’re a tight-knit group, and we all work well together.”
“Yes,” said Durgin, “we have a great group of guys. I thought our defense played great tonight. Brighton has a lot of speed on its team and to keep them out of the end zone until late in the fourth quarter, I thought was outstanding.”
The Spartans, 10-0, got off and running right away. Although the Bengals won the toss, they deferred to the second half, giving St. Mary’s the ball. It took only six plays for the Spartans to score, with Brumfield taking it in the final eight yards.
“I’m really happy,” Durgin said, “that we we were able to come out there and score right away.’
Brighton could get nothing going, and had to punt on its first possession. But the Bengals managed to pin the Spartans back on their own 3-yard line on the kick. No problem. St. Mary’s needed only seven plays to score, with Calvin Johnson plunging in from the one. The highlight of the drive was Brumfield’s 49-yard run on a third-and 2 from the 23. Brumfield tallied 193 yards in the first half and St. Mary’s led, 30-0, at the break.
Brumfield scored touchdown No. 2 on the last play of the first quarter on a 42-yard run, and Johnson ran one in from the 11 later in the second quarter.
Just to show everyone that St. Mary’s can launch sustained drives as well as score quickly, the Spartans, starting on their own 42, went 15 plays and ate up a substantial amount of the third quarter before Brumfield scored from 13 yards out to make it 36-0.
Connor Donahue’s 5-yard run made it 42-0 before Jose Pinero ran one in for Brighton.
“We’ll enjoy this tonight,” said Durgin, “but we have a tough one next week.”
