Duxbury hangs on, tops Scituate
DUXBURY — They call it puck luck in hockey but whatever the term is in football, Duxbury had plenty.
The kings of the Keenan Division, Duxbury (2-0) escaped with a 27-26 win over Fisher Division foe Scituate in a cross division-rivalry game in the Patriot League in front of a capacity crowd for the Dragons home opener.
The Sailors (1-1) scored 19 fourth-quarter points but a missed extra point, a fumbled snap on a two-point conversion to win the game, and an onside kick that bounced the Dragons way all in the final six-plus minutes of the game collectively doomed the Sailors in the end.
The Duxbury duo of captain Brady Madigan and quarterback Matt Festa was electric all night long as the tandem hooked up for all four Duxbury touchdowns through the air. Madigan finished with five catches for 167 yards while Festa was 11of-21 for 250 yards.
“(Festa) is an animal, we go out and practice every single day, and we work on our stuff,” said Madigan. “We got lucky, I mean, you are going to have football games like that but I thought we played a really good game, we made some mistakes, but things went our way.
Duxbury was cruising in the third quarter with a 21-7 lead after Festa connected with Madigan on the fourth play from scrimmage to start the second half. Festa scrambled to find an open Madigan
who did all the rest with some fancy footwork outside the five-yard line to go in for the 53-yard touchdown.
Duxbury still held the 14point lead at the end of three quarters, but Keegan Sullivan scored from 11 yards out to cut the lead in half to open the fourth quarter.
After a quick three-andout for the Dragons, quarterback Henry Gates pulled off some fine footwork of his own as the senior signal caller rolled out with a bootleg to his left on second-andgoal from the 11 and found Jamieson Holdin just as he got folded at the line of scrimmage. After a tough first half, Scituate was right back in things trailing by a point, 21-20, with 7:22 remaining in regulation.
Things went haywire as the extra point sailed wide left and gave the momentum back to Duxbury and the dynamic duo of Festa and Madigan struck again from five-yards out on a pretty roll-out left with Madigan keeping his feet in bounds inside the right pylon.
But the Dragons miss the extra-point and Gates completes a 43-yard pass down the left sideline to Danny DeCoste with 47 seconds left to play. DeCoste got out of bounds at the Dragons fouryard line and Sullivan went in two plays later to set up the theatrics.
Give Scituate credit as they went for the win on the road with 35 seconds left, but a fumble in the backfield on the two-point conversion killed the comeback.
“We left a lot of mistakes out there for sure and we know we need to get better,” said Duxbury head coach Matt Landolfi. “We tried to make adjustments, we did some, but we definitely need to clean some stuff up on defense.”
Even the ensuing onside kick for the Sailors hit Duxbury defender Chris Walsh square in the chest and bounced back into Scituate territory but Walsh made a great play to recover the loose ball and end the wild back-and-forth contest.
“Damn … can I say that? … damn. We played an awful first half, we had no rhythm, we weren’t in sync, and we weren’t executing like we normally do. To hang around 21-7 — our guys kept battling,” said Scituate head coach Herb Devine. “We had the play called right there for the two-point conversion and we were going to go for it but the snap — we haven’t had that all year honestly, not even in practice — and to have one there is just brutal for our guys.”