LYNN — Despite a five-turnover night, the St. Mary’s football team battled back from a 16-point deficit to come within one play of a potential win over Mashpee Friday night at Manning Field. Unfortunately for the Spartans, one mistake too many led to a 30-24 loss in a rematch of last year’s Division 7 state semifinal.
“You just can’t turn the ball over five times and expect the win,” said St. Mary’s coach Sean Driscoll. “With that being said, I was proud of the way we fought back against a very good team. We have a lot of competitors on this team, and they weren’t going to go down without a fight.”
Jalen Echevarria had a huge night on the ground despite some ball security issues, rushing for 179 yards and one touchdown. He also caught one pass for 48 yards and a touchdown. George Freeman rushed for 109 yards, while Connor Donohue ran for one touchdown and Derek O’Leary completed 3-of-4 passes for 73 yards and a touchdown.
The Spartans didn’t get the start they wanted. After fielding the opening kickoff, Echevarria was hit deep in his own zone and fumbled to give Mashpee great field position. Three plays later, Mashpee quarterback Ian Miller punched in a two-yard touchdown run to put the Falcons ahead 8-0.
The score remained there until the first play of the second quarter. After forcing a three-and-out on St. Mary’s to end the first, Mashpee took over at its own 33-yard line. The first play of the drive was an inside handoff to running back Devaun Ford, who burst through the line and raced 67 yards for a touchdown to put Mashpee up by two scores.
After the Spartans’ third fumble of the game about halfway through the second quarter, things were not looking good for St. Mary’s. But after forcing a Mashpee punt and getting the ball back with about four minutes left, the Spartans had a chance to end the half with a bang. What ensued was an 11-play, 75-yard drive that took up almost the entire rest of the quarter, mainly on the back of Freeman (60 rush yards on the drive). With 30 seconds left in the half, Donohue punched in a two-yard touchdown to bring the score to 16-8 Mashpee at the half.
Mashpee continued its strong play to open the second half, moving 84 yards on eight plays on its first drive to go up 22-8 on a Ford touchdown run. St. Mary’s was able to answer when O’Leary found Echevarria on a perfectly executed play-action pass for a 48-yard touchdown at the end of the third.
The fourth quarter saw each team fumble once, but it was the Spartans’ fumble that hurt the most. After Ford rushed for his third touchdown of the game to put Mashpee up 30-16, St. Mary’s answered right away when Echevarria took a handoff on the first play and ran it in from 75 yards. The Spartans then tried an onside kick, which they successfully recovered. But just when it appeared that the momentum was on their side, the Spartans fumbled on the first play of the drive to give the ball right back to Mashpee.
“It’s unfortunate, but we just can’t make mistakes like that if we want to win these games,” said Driscoll.
Despite a late drive that saw the Spartans get all the way to the Mashpee 30-yard line with 45 seconds to go, a sack on fourth-and-six ended the rally and handed the Falcons the win.
Now at 4-3, the Spartans are waiting to see where they’ll be seeded in the state tournament. “We’ll see how things go in terms of seeding, but really we just need to clean up these mistakes,” said Driscoll. “We’ve gone up against some really good teams this year and played them tough, but it’s not going to matter much if we keep shooting ourselves in the foot like this. So we’ll go back to practice and keep working, and hopefully we can turn things around by next week.”
