Oakers crush NS/MSC
Northmen-Mounties suffer first D-III defeat
NORTH SMITHFIELD — For the first 12 minutes of Saturday night’s contest between two of Division III’s three unbeaten teams, North Smithfield/Mount St. Charles co-op accentuated its positives in the running game and didn’t allow visiting Coventry to exploit is deficiencies in the passing game.
Eventually, Coventry figured out that running between the tackles against the Northmen/ Mounties wasn’t the road to success and instead put the game on the right arm of senior quarterback Will Turner.
After being held scoreless in the opening quarter, the Oakers exploded for 21 points in the second quarter behind three touchdowns passes – two to junior Alex Santilli – by Turner to take a lead it would never relinquish. Turner ended the night with 199 passes yards and four passing touchdowns to go along with a four-yard rushing touchdown in the final quarter to secure a 42-3 victory at Veterans Memorial Field.
“We just clicked after the first quarter,” Turner said. “Having all of our seniors back, we were at full strength and we also had Alex and my little brother, Tommy, all those guys really played well tonight. They had some good momentum in the first quarter and stopped us, but I feel like we also had some nerves. In the second quarter we came out strong and very confident.”
“We just turned up,” Santilli said of the second-quarter barrage. “I don’t know what to say, we just played football. We came into the game mentally prepared and after we were down by three early in the game, we just knew we had to play football.”
North Smithfield/Mount St. Charles (2-1 Division III) finishes the regular season next week against Classical in a game that will likely decide home-field advantage in the Division III semifinals. The home side’s only points came on the opening drive of the game when Jordan Allard and Jared Beaudoin ran NS/MSC 42 yards to set up all-division kicker Pasquale Camastro to kick a 40-yard field goal with 6:11 left.
The Northmen-Mounties struggled to find offensive success the rest of the game, as the Oakers packed the box and dared sophomore Cole Vowels to beat them through the air. The lefty completed six of his 16 passes for 40 yards and an interception.
The defeat was the first home loss for NS/MSC since 2017 and the team’s first loss of any kind since dropping the 2018 Division IV Super Bowl to Tiverton.
“You never like to lose, but at some point you know the streak is going to end,” NS/ MSC coach Wes Pennington said. “We just know we need to get better and continue to play. We have a lot of young guys who played and we saw some mistakes. A lot of things that we were able to cover up in the first two wins, we couldn’t do that against a good football team.”
Coventry (4-0 Division III) can clinch the No. 1 spot and a home game in the D-III semifinals with a victory over a Johnston team that just experienced a COVID quarantine. This is the most success the Oakers have experienced since 2014 when Joe Foley quarterbacked Coventry to an upset win over North Kingstown in the D-II quarterfinals.
“Honestly, what we’re doing right now is about everyone buying into what we’re doing,” Will Turner said. “We’ve gone through three head coaches and we’ve been through a lot and we’re just sick of it and just want to win, that is what’s made this happen. We also have good leadership on the team.”
NS/MSC had a chance to build on its lead after stopping Coventry following Camastro’s kick, but an illegal-formation penalty to start the drive proved to be too much to overcome. The Northmen-Mounties punted the ball to start the second quarter and Santilli, who caught five passes for 82 yards, gave his side the lead for good when he exploited a busted coverage to catch a 38-yard touchdown pass.
Coventry doubled it lead with 2:05 left in the quarter when Turner found Santilli open in the right corner of the end zone for a nine-yard touchdown, and the Oakers extended the lead to 21-3 with 18 seconds remaining on a Cameron Vesey 29-yard touchdown reception.
“We made some mistakes in the secondary on coverages and the next thing you know we found ourselves down by three scores at halftime,” Pennington said. “We were hoping to cover some stuff up by holding on to the ball and running it a little more and force their hand more, but instead the wheels got turned and they forced our hand. We’re not that team right now that can play that way.”
The game officially turned into a blowout on the first drive of the third quarter when Turner found his younger brother, who made an incredible one-handed catch, for a 52-yard touchdown reception just 70 seconds into the third quarter. Jaden Carnevale scampered for a 29-yard touchdown later in the quarter and Turner scored a four-yard rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter to finish the scoring.