Blue Knights control line in win over Panthers

Hold Ayer Shirley to 167 yards of offense

» When you have over 400 yards of total offense and three different players soaring over 100 yards rushing, one needs to look at the game the offensive line played in opening the holes.

But when your defense limits the opposition to under 200 yards of offense, one needs to look at the defensive line, too.

Quite succinctly, the Lunenburg football team’s trenches controlled the tempo Friday afternoon as the Blue Knights improved to 2- 0 courtesy a 32-13 victory over rival Ayer Shirley Regional at Veterans Memorial Field.

Lunenburg, which posted 423 yards of total offense and limited the Panthers to 167, will take on old Thanksgiving rival Quabbin Regional next weekend.

Ayer-Shirley dropped to 0-2 and takes on Murdock next Saturday.

It should be noted that of Ayer’s 167 yards, 103 of that came through the air, with 52 coming on the third play of the game, a Brian Holmes scoring strike to Cameron Marshall. And while the Panthers had a couple of long runs in their next series, the Blue Knight defense tightened up the rest of the way, only yielding one more score with 4:30 left in the game with the score no longer in doubt.

That’s a credit to the line play, which sent the Panther offense three-and-out three times, and had tackles for loss on eight plays.

“I’m really excited when we talk about the offensive line,” said first-year Lunenburg coach Anthony Nalen, noting the play of Brian Melendez, John Nelson and Michael Gilpatrick. “They’re all coming back in the fall, and I’m really proud of their effort.”

The play of the offensive line spurred three 100-plus-yard efforts by the Blue Knights, who saw slashing tailback Dawson Powell (135 yards on 15 carries, 2 TD runs), bull-like fullback Ryan Jones (114 yards on 17 carries, TD), and quarterback Adam Hill (110 yards on 14 carries, 2 TDs) all hit the century mark on the ground.

Lunenburg answered Ayer Shirley’s opener with an 11-play, 67-yard scoring drive which saw the Blue Knights convert on three key third-down conversions. The third one saw Powell go off right tackle to gain 11 down to the Panther 16, before Will Peplowski broke two tackles

on an end around for another gain of 11.

On the next play, Powell plunged in from five yards away off left tackle, pulling Lunenburg to within one, 7- 6, after the point- after attempt failed.

And while Lunenburg successfully onside kicked on the ensuing kickoff and drove down to the Panther 1, the Knights couldn’t hit pay dirt, the ball fumbled before it broke the plane of the goal line and recovered by Ayer in the end zone.

Yet after the Panthers

turned over on downs near midfield, Lunenburg turned things around and scored to go-ahead TD on the next series.

A 12-yard pick-up by Jones preceded a 20-yard scramble by Hill to put the Blue Knights at the Ayer 13. Two plays later, Hill used a nifty play-fake and rushed off the right guard to score from five yards out.

The conversion pass failed, and Lunenburg led, 12-7.

After the Knights sent the Panthers three-andout courtesy three tackles for loss of - 4, -3, and -3 yards, Hill fed the AyerShirley defense a healthy diet of Powell, with two carried by himself and

one by Jones before using that play-fake again to score from the 1.

After the conversion run just missed, Lunenburg led, 18-7.

It remained that way until the opening drive of the third was Powell scored from four yards away, going in off the left end. Connor Anderson’s kick was good, 25-7.

Jones added the capper from six yards out.

“It’s nice with the run game being the way it is,” Nalen said. “And Adam gives us another layer to that; the running backs compliment him.”

Joe Gauntlett scored Ayer’s second TD from a yard away to account for the final score.