AUBURN — The Sanford Spartans not only used the scouting report in preparation for Friday’s game with Edward Little, but also had the help of the weather report.
With inclement weather predicted, the Spartans tried to prepare accordingly.
“In practice, we put the ball under the hose and rubbed it in the dirt to get it all nice and ready for Friday night,” senior back Peter Hegarty said. “Coming into the game it was pretty wet. So we figured we’d stay more on the ground.”
Sanford was ready to grind and slop it out Friday night and the ground game proved it in a 41-25 win over Edward Little at Walton Field. With both teams coming in at 2-3, it was a key win for the Spartans moving forward.
“Every week is a position game,” said Sanford coach Mike Fallon, whose team hosts Bonny Eagle next week. “At this point, you’re trying to establish your position in the postseason. I was really glad to come up here and play well.”
Edward Little coach Dave Sterling left the field without comment following the game.
Though the field wasn’t as muddy and sloppy as the Spartans might have expected, Sanford made its tenacious ground game work in its favor. The Spartans rushed for more than 400 yards on 60 carries and finished with 497 total yards.
“It probably wasn’t super exciting,” Fallon said. “It’s probably the least amount we’ve thrown it all year. We’d been watching the weather all week and didn’t know what the field conditions might be like. Another thing is, we felt that we play fast, but we wanted to possess the ball as much as we could. They have some pretty good athletes and they throw the ball pretty well and they proved it.”
Hegarty led the Spartans with 165 yards on 31 carries and two touchdowns. He also completed a key halfback pass that led to his touchdown two plays later. Keith Kerrigan rushed for 88 yards on 13 carries and scored once. Zach Kang added 55 yards on four tries and a score while Sam Anderson scored twice.
“We have great backs,” Hegarty said. “We have four or five different backs that carry the ball. So it’s tough to key on us.”
EL had just 48 yards on the ground on 17 tries. Most of the Red Eddies’ offense came through the air. Quarterback Matt Verrill threw for 384 yards on 18 completions. He passed for four touchdowns, including three to Tyler Blanchard. Blanchard finished with eight catches for 267 yards. The big plays that EL produced kept them close after falling behind 13-0, but Sanford still had enough big plays of its own to finish the job.
“We kept looking at the scoreboard and it was still a ballgame the whole way through,” Fallon said. “We could not really put it away.”
Once again, special teams played a role for EL. After having two punts blocked for touchdowns last week against Windham, EL had a bad punt snap lead to a touchdown while another punt was blocked.
“We made a couple of plays on special teams early,” Fallon said. “That turned out to be big in the end.”
After a scoreless first quarter, Sanford scored 28 points in the second to build a 28-13 lead. Sanford took the lead early in the quarter when Kerrigan ran it in from 20 yards out with 11:51 left in the half. The Spartans turned it into a 13-0 advantage with 9:08 when a bad snap on the punt sailed over the head of Grant Hartley. Anderson picked it up at the 20 and ran it in.
EL got one back when Verrill connected with Blanchard on a short pass that turned into a 74-yard play, getting EL within 13-7 with 8:46 left in the half. Sanford answered with a 40-yard run from Kang and a four-yard run from Hegarty to open a 28-7 lead with 3:40 left. EL cut the lead again when Verrill and Blanchard hooked up on a similar pass play for 87 yards and a score to make it 28-13 at the half.
“We’ve got some young kids out there and early in the year, they were having trouble with that, realizing it’s a 48-minute game and it’s going to have highs and lows,” Fallon said. “I think we rallied pretty well when we gave up some things or we made some bad plays.”
Sanford scored with 4:51 left in the third when Hegarty finished off a drive from the 4, but EL kept getting big plays to pull closer. Sanford often missed tackles on the elusive Blanchard and that led to big plays. Verrill hit Blanchard on a 59-yard pass play early in the fourth to make it 35-19. Though Sanford got a 3-yard run from Anderson for a score, Verrill hit Isaac Cote on an 18-yard pass play with 3:11 left.
“Our goal coming into the game was to win on the road and win back-to-back,” Hegarty said. “We haven’t won back-to-back yet and we hadn’t won a road game yet this year. We met our goals tonight. So we’re pretty happy.”
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