LYNN — The first edition of the Austin Prep-St. Mary’s Thanksgiving rivalry went to the Cougars.
Sophomore quarterback Ronan Noke carried in two touchdowns and threw for another, leading Austin Prep to a 32-14 win Wednesday night at Manning Field.
Junior running back Michael Gizzi, not to be outdone, drove the Cougars’ ground game with 230 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Overall, it was a frustrating night for a normally stout Spartans defense.
“We didn’t seem to have the aggressiveness,” St. Mary’s coach Sean Driscoll said. “We missed a lot of tackles. We didn’t make the plays we had to make. Austin Prep did and hats off to them.”
St. Mary’s ends the season at 6-5.
“That’s not the goal here,” Driscoll said. “We really set a goal after we lost that playoff game (Div. 7 North quarterfinal at Greater Lawrence) to get to seven wins and we didn’t reach that goal. But it’s something to build on. We’ll get back on track.”
Austin Prep took a quick 6-0 lead when Ronan Noke sealed the opening drive with a 2-yard touchdown run (PAT blocked). Derek O’Leary (65 rushing yards, 2-of-6 on pass attempts for 43 yards) knotted the score at 6-6 on a 59-yard keeper two minutes later. George Percy added the 2-point conversion via rush, giving St. Mary’s an 8-6 lead.
Then the rain came down and both offenses lost their footing. Austin Prep, with help from a pair of St. Mary’s penalties, marched down to the Spartans’ 5-yard line midway through the second quarter. A couple Cougars penalties set them back and a missed 30-yard field goal attempt kept them trailing.
They reclaimed the lead, 12-8, at the close of the half, thanks to Ronan Noke’s 3-yard toss to Aidan Noke (conversion failed).
The Cougars cashed in on a short field to bump their lead in the third quarter. Christopher Walsh pounced on a St. Mary’s fumble at the Spartans’ 43 two minutes into the quarter. Connor McCarthy’s 1-yard plunge four minutes later put the Spartans in an 18-8 hole (PAT missed).
St. Mary’s closed the gap to 18-14 on O’Leary’s 1-yard keeper near the end of the period.
The Cougars sealed the deal in the fourth quarter. Ronan Noke ran in a 19-yard touchdown (Ronan Noke conversion, 11:03 remaining) and Gizzi’s 39-yard scamper (conversion failed, 3:59 remaining) finished the 32-14 win.
“I think we’ll look back at this game and see some opportunities that were missed,” Driscoll said. “Defensively we just weren’t there. We didn’t tackle well, we had costly penalties and that hurts us. Those are things we had to fix.”
Prior to Wednesday’s game, St. Mary’s honored its seven seniors- O’Leary, Sam Mellen, Marcus Brunson-Perez, Alec Colaccitti, Daniel Lauria, Nick Nowak and Dylan Abkarian- with a brief ceremony.
“It’s a tough way to end the year,” Driscoll said. “We had seniors that really stuck together and we wanted to send them off with a win.
“A couple of them were first-year players, which is sometimes hard to do. Sometimes you don’t start picking things up until halfway through the year. But they played hard and they were a pleasure to coach. Now we have to get back on track.”
