North Haven grinds past Brookfield
Bobcats handed their first loss
BROOKFIELD — North Haven is used to watching teams try to defend its run-heavy approach, what it is not used to is having to defend it themselves.
That is exactly the spot the Indians found themselves in Friday night coming to Brookfield to take on a team with a similar run-first offense.
Coming into the game, the two teams combined for 344 rushing attempts and just 30 passing attempts.
Whatever you call it, ground and pound, smash-mouth, old-school,
4-yards and a cloud of dust, football was the name of the game and it was North
Haven coming out of the scrum with a 17-7 win on the road in a SCC-SWC crossover game.
The win moves North
Haven to 5-0 while giving Brookfield its first loss, dropping them to
4-1.
North Haven coach Anthony Sagnella said his team is used to being the ones pounding teams with the, run but defending it presented all new challenges.
“It was a challenge because you get used to defending spread teams and teams that don’t want to punch you in the mouth. It was as much of a challenge for us to prepare for them as it was for them to prepare for us,” Sagnella said. “In the second half, we had to make a couple blocking adjustments, and we did. Then we had to block them. They were well prepared for us and tonight was a battle. A line-of-scrimmage tug-of-war and we won it in the end.”
After a scoreless first quarter, Brookfield would be the first to break through.
Taking over near midfield after a muffed punt by North Haven, Brookfield would get in the end zone on a 5-yard run by Nick Henderson and would go into the break up 7-0.
In the second half, adjustments to blocking schemes on the offensive line propelled the Indians to a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half. Nick Dodge finished the drive off with a 28-yard touchdown run, tying the game.
Brookfield knew at some point, North Haven would start shifting linemen, but stopping it was another story.
“Our defense played a very good first half. Some of their shifting and
running to their bench worked in the second half. We stopped them, but we didn’t stop them as many times as we would like to,” Brookfield coach Rich Angarano said. “We had a big turnover down deep which could have made a difference in the game and offensively, we were 0-9 on third down conversions. That says it all on the game.”
The big fumble for Brookfield came with them driving late in the third quarter turning the ball over to North Haven inside the 10-yard line.
North Haven would finally take the lead with 6:25 left to play in the game when Dodge pushed his way in from 2-yards out, putting the Indians up 14-7.
North Haven would add a 38-yard field goal by Chase DiCarlo with a minute to play for the final margin.
PLAYER OF THE GAME
Nick Dodge, North Haven. Dodge ran hard all game, finding the end zone twice.
QUOTABLE
“We knew we were both hard running teams and we pride ourselves on toughness. We both played hard but we came out on top,” Dodge said. “We changed our blocking scheme a little bit (in the second half) and made adjustments to what they were doing on defense. We knew we were going to have to have long drives. 13-14 play drives that chew up clock and it worked out for us.”