LYNN — The St. Mary’s Spartans (3-2) defended their home turf with a 16-14 win over Bishop Stang at Manning Field.
On fourth down Stang had the ball on St. Mary’s 38 yard-line with under two minutes remaining. Stang needed to get to the 34 yard-line for the first down while trailing 16-14.
Stang’s quarterback, Brock Winslow, kept the ball and tried to make a move to the outside. As he was approaching the first down marker, St. Mary’s freshman Rowan Merryman made the initial hit on Winslow which was then followed up by Maxwell Parent to keep Winslow short of the marker resulting in St. Mary’s ball and the win.
“I was just thinking we need to make a big stop here to win the game,” Merryman said. “We were working hard the whole game. It was my time to step up and get a tackle to help the team.”
St. Mary’s coach Sean Driscoll said he debated calling timeouts in the drive leading up to fourth down in case Stang scored.
“When an option team has the ball, they’re going to grind the clock to the end so in my head, I’m thinking, how am I going to use my timeouts to make sure we have time on offense in case they do score,” Driscoll said. “I knew we were going to have trouble stopping them all game.”
Stang rushed for over 240 yards and had the lion’s share of possession throughout the game.
“They’re a physical football team and they came right at us. Their quarterback had some long runs,” Driscoll said. “Running the option is tough to simulate in practice and they do a nice job with it.”
Rarely having the ball wasn’t an issue in the first half for St. Mary’s as they scored 16 points on four offensive plays.
The first score came when quarterback Yaniel Belliard kept the snap and rushed through the middle of the field, juking a defender on his way for a 52-yard touchdown.
“He’s a young athlete that makes plays on his own with his feet which is a good thing,” Driscoll said. “We’re excited to have him for three years.”
The Spartans converted on the two-point conversion to make it 8-0 with 6:48 left in the first quarter.
After the touchdown, Stang threatened the Spartans getting the ball deep into St. Mary’s territory. On a quarterback keeper, the ball came loose and it was picked up by Tyler Guy who ran 87 yards untouched to the endzone.
“We did a nice job [on defense] in the first half,” Driscoll said. “We were fortunate with the fumble return which was a huge play in the game and then getting the two-point conversions are always big.”
St. Mary’s again converted the two-point conversion to make it 16-0 at the end of the first quarter.
Stang scored on a three-yard carry from Winslow in the third quarter to make it 16-8.
Moments later on fourth-and-goal, Winslow ran seven yards for the score to make it 16-14, unfortunately for the traveling Stang fans, there was a personal foul at the end of the play resulting in Stang having to attempt the two-point conversion from the 18 yard-line.
Stang failed to convert the two-point conversion which proved to be pivotal in St. Mary’s picking up its third win of the season.
