BLUE KNIGHTS BATTLE THROUGH POWER OUTAGE
Lunenburg wins opener as sunlight fades away
» Like most things in the past year, Friday night’s season opener for the Lunenburg High football team was a bit unique.
Ignore the face masks worn by players and the mandatory water breaks; those were planned disruptions in the contest.
The electricity cutting out with three minutes left to play? That was an unexpected wrinkle.
With an early start, officials decided there was enough waning sunlight to play the remainder of the contest without a delay and the Blue Knights fended off a tough Murdock side, winning 21-7 to kick off their Fall 2 season.
Tight throughout, the Blue
Knights put the game away with an Adam Hill touchdown with 4:18 left, pushing the Lunenburg lead to 19-7. Hill’s two-point run made it a 14point edge and essentially put the game on ice.
Any hopes for a Murdock comeback were crushed on the ensuing kickoff, as the ball was bobbled on a short kick and recovered by Lunenburg. The hosts were able to run out the clock — kept on field by one of the officials — to close out the victory.
“Murdock is extremely wellcoached, extremely physical. They’re a heck of a team,” said Lunenburg head coach Anthony Nalen, at the helm for his first contest after being tabbed to lead the Blue Knights last year. “We had the mentality that we needed to go toe-to-toe
with them and grind it out in the second half. We were able to do that.”
Hill’s go-ahead touchdown run was set up by some strong running by Jonathan Coppenrath, who put the Blue Knights in a first-andgoal situation with a 16-yard jaunt. Coppenrath nearly got into the end zone on a fouryard run that put the ball at the one before Hill punched it in on a quarterback keeper.
Murdock jumped in front early, scoring on its first possession, courtesy of a 56-yard run by Jonathan Polcari.
After taking the lead just two minutes in, the Blue Devil offense faltered, managing just five first downs in the remaining 46 minutes of the game.
“It’s a run-heavy offense from Murdock and we had one breakdown,” Nalen lamented.
“That breakdown allowed them (to score). Their quarterback is a stud and we knew if he got loose, we’d be in trouble. Outside of that, they bent but didn’t break and contained him.”
The Blue Knights pulled even on a Hill scoring run from 13 yards later in the first, with Connor Anderson’s point after tying things at 7.
A six-yard touchdown run by Ryan Jones late in the opening quarter gave the home team a 13-7 lead that would hold until the final quarter.
“These guys have been going at it for about five weeks straight now and what you saw here tonight speaks volumes about the effort they’ve put in,” Nalen said.
“We’ve got a lot of great leaders and they stepped up in the second half to make sure we could put it away.”