Second-half surge powers Leominster past Wachusett
HOLDEN — Trailing, 25-7, in the waning moments of the first half, Leominster, which entered Friday night’s game with an admittedly disappointing record of 1-4, seemed to be heading down a similar path.
But as the clock struck zero in the first half, Blue Devil phenom quarterback back Osiris Lopez made an improbable 41-yard touchdown run, moving around the pocket before sprinting down the sideline, before cutting across the field and eventually gliding into the end zone.
That touchdown cut the Wachusett lead to 25-14, and more importantly provided a major spark for the Blue Devils. Leominster dominated the second half, outscoring Wachusett, 24-7, and survived a late push by Wachusett (2-4) to claim a dramatic 38-32 victory on the road.
“I’m so happy for this group,” Leominster coach Devin Gates said. “They’ve been through a lot. The season didn’t start the way we expected after the way we ended last season.
“Guys know this is a new season, a new team,” Gates added. “It’s not last year‘s team. I think they found their identity a little bit tonight. Today was a rebirth, if you will, of Leominster football.”
Gates said he was pleased to see his team dig in and fight when they had to.
“It could’ve gone down a path that it had gone this year, with some self-inflicted wounds, and giving things away at times to other teams,” Gates said. “I think it would’ve been easy to kind of just say we did it again. But the guys didn’t do that. I saw a different side of our football team, and we turned a corner tonight.”
On that game-changing play at the end of half, Lopez said he was just trying to make something happen.
“I think that touchdown right before half turned us all up, and we got excited for the second half,” Lopez said. “We got the ball coming back out, so we knew we had to score and make it a game.
“I knew we only had a couple seconds left, so I knew I had to score that touchdown no matter what,” Lopez added. “So I was making whatever moves I needed to to get in that end zone.”
“That gave us quite a spark,” Gates added. “That’s a whole new ballgame. He makes a tremendous effort there, and there’s some tremendous downfield blocking and he does what Osiris does. He makes the magic happen.”
In that second half, Leominster went right to work, getting a 23-yard field goal from Daniel Thompson to make it an eight-point game.
Lopez found Swaine on a pair of touchdown passes, the first pulling the Blue Devils even late in the third quarter, and the other sending Leominster ahead early in the fourth. Leominster later extended its lead to 38-25 when Lopez ran it in himself from 4 yards.
Wachusett made it interesting late when Cam McGravey got loose and caught a 63-yard touchdown pass from Dillon Harper, then the Mountaineers got the ball back with less than a minute to play. But the Leominster defense held, breaking up a pass in the end zone on the final play to seal the victory.
“That was a total team effort coming back to win that game,” Gates said. “It wasn’t on any one person‘s shoulders. Everybody just made a play to make this happen. I am very proud of the guys for how resilient that we were tonight.
“That’s something that we need to see from this football team, and they showed it tonight.”
Wachusett led, 13-0, after one quarter on two TD passes from Harper.
Early in the second quarter, Leominster cut into that Wachusett lead when Ryan Ricker snagged a 1-yard pass from Lopez, and the Blue Devils pulled within 13-7.
Wachusett then temporarily separated from Leominster thanks to two big plays from Ethan Blomquist. He hauled in a 31-yard TD pass from Harper extending the lead to 19-7. On the next Leominster offensive play, Bloomquist cut in front of a Lopez pass and took it to the house for a 19-yard score to put Wachusett ahead, 25-7.