Contenders
Defense keys Woonsocket home rout
A month into the season and things didn’t look too promising for the WHS football team, but after pasting Rogers 35-7 they look the part of champs.
WOONSOCKET — One month into the season it seemed virtually impossible the winless Woonsocket football team would retain its Division II Super Bowl title.
One month later and with the playoffs on the horizon, the Villa Novans are playing their best football of the season and are one of the contenders to reach Cranston Stadium.
For the fourth straight weekend the physical Novans rode their talented backfield trio of Tarik O’Hagan, Logan Coles and Hayden Depault on offense, while the Corey Brown-led defense was simply dominant. Saturday, visiting Rogers didn’t pick up its second first round until the final seconds of the game, while the aforementioned trio played a role in all five touchdowns to lead Woonsocket to a 35-7 Division II victory over the playoff-bound Vikings at Barry Field.
“When we play that kind of football, we’re going to be tough to beat,” Woonsocket coach Charlie Bibeault said. “A lot of our improvement over the last four weeks had to do with getting Jesse Houle back.”
He’s our senior leader, he’s our vocal leader and he’s our center. Defensively, we’ve been lights out the last four games, especially in the pass game.”
“After the first four games we got a reality check,” O’Hagan said after completing 13 of 22 passes for 181 yards and a touchdown. “We had kids come in cocky thinking they were going to roll over D-II, but all the kids from different states that moved to our school, they’re finding out this isn’t a joke. We finally came together as a team.”
Woonsocket (4-4, 4-3 Division II) won its last four games to earn the No. 3 seed in the Division II playoffs, which means a long bus ride to No. 2 Westerly Friday night in the quarterfinals. Friday’s meeting will be the fourth between the rivals in the last 13 months. Westerly won the first meeting this season, 21-18, at Barry Field on Sept. 28.
Rogers (4-3 Division II) made the trip from Aquidneck Island knowing a victory over the Novans would secure a home playoff game, but instead the Vikings will return to the Blackstone Valley next Saturday to face undefeated Burrillville in the quarterfinals. Saturday, quarterback Max Newsome didn’t complete a pass and threw two interceptions. The Vikings finished the day with just two first downs.
“We ran a cover-0 [man-to-man defense with no safety help] and blitzed our weak-wise linebacker and they weren’t used to the pressure we put on them,” Depault said. “The never adjusted and we capitalized on it. This feels pretty good right now.”
After both teams went threeand-out to start the game, Woonsocket marched 57 yards on 13 plays to open the scoring. Jaylan Lopez converted a fourth down with a nine-yard run and Coles finished the drive with a four-yard touchdown run with 3:05 left in the opening quarter.
Woonsocket, thanks to a 40yard screen pass from O’Hagan to Coles, doubled its lead early in the second quarter when O’Hagan scored on a one-yard quarterback sneak for the first of his two rushing touchdowns. O’Hagan hit Lopez for a nine-yard touchdown late in the quarter, but a long kickoff return set up Kyshaun Pemberton for a seven-yard rushing touchdown to make the score 21-7 at halftime.
“We know what we have to do to be successful, we have to play physical football,” Bibeault said. “We feel like no one can play physical football with us, that’s our M.O. We’re in the weight room all year round. Our approach is the same every week – be phenomenal or be forgotten. We play hard and we practice hard. Everything we do depends on playing physical football.”
The Novans continued to play superb defense in the third quarter, including intercepting quarterback Max Newsome on the third play of the half thanks to a nice play from Eric Agyemang. The Viking signal caller was 0-for-8 with two interceptions and a 17-yard sack.
Offensively, Woonsocket committed far too many penalties in the third quarter, but the hosts improved their discipline in the fourth quarter and scored a pair of touchdowns. O’Hagan increased the lead to 20 with a three-yard touchdown run just 90 seconds into the quarter.
O’Hagan made the play of the game later in the quarter when he had three Viking defenders draped all over him for a sack, but the 230-pound sophomore shed the defenders and ran for nine yards to pick up a first down. The drive culminated in a Depault 12-yard touchdown run.
“If I feel like I can get out of it, I’ll just go down, but in that situation I just felt like I could move all the players off of me and get more yards,” O’Hagan said. “When I did it, I was like ‘Oh.’”
“I love blocking or those two [Coles and O’Hagan],” Depault said. “I love the trench life, what can I say. I love to see those guys score and celebrate with them. They give me the credit when it’s needed.”