Football: Hillsboro-Deering wins program’s first home game with a 20-14 victory over Franklin
Published: 09-22-2024 11:20 AM
Modified: 09-22-2024 3:07 PM |
HILLSBORO – Ever since Jay Wood was hired as Hillsboro-Deering High School’s athletic director, he dreamed of bringing football to the community. On Saturday, 17 years later, that dream became a reality.
It’d be hard to draw up a more exciting opening game than the one the Hillcats played. It came down to the final possession, but junior captain Robert King had a huge day with 202 rushing yards and two touchdowns (both in the second half), and also had two interceptions and a team-high 10 tackles on defense, to lead Hillsboro-Deering (2-0) to a 20-14 victory over Franklin (1-1) in their first ever home game as a solo program and their first ever game played on their campus.
While most of the Hillcat players have experienced varsity football before as members of the Hillsboro-Deering/Hopkinton Redhawk program, those home games were played in Hopkinton behind the town library.
Playing on their campus, in front of their community for the first time, the excitement was palpable.
“We all got here two and half hours early, even earlier than we were supposed to be here. Running plays, throwing the ball around, setting up the field,” said King, a junior tailback and captain. “We love to see the town here. It’s a great feeling.”
Although H-D earned the win, it was Franklin that drew first blood on the first drive of the game, with junior quarterback Nate Holmes (106 rush yards) scoring on a 4-yard rush and senior Cole Johnson kicking the extra point to give the Tornadoes a 7-0 lead at 5:44.
The Hillcats fumbled the ball away twice, both times forced by Franklin junior defensive end George Sarkis and both times recovered by fellow junior Tyler Bennett (team-high seven tackles, three for loss), but H-D junior fullback Daniel Richard (77 yards on 11 carries) scored a 25-yard rushing touchdown and junior Ethan Franklin (25 yards on 5 carries) ran in the 2-point conversion to give the Hillcats an 8-7 lead midway through the quarter.
King intercepted a pass by Holmes to end Franklin’s last drive of the first half and ensured H-D’s 8-7 lead at halftime.
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Hillsboro’s players already had a lot to play for and knew a lot of hype surrounded this game. The father of one of the players passed away on Wednesday night after practice, giving H-D even more of a reason to compete.
King described his team’s mindset as being “locked in” all week, and Wood saw it pay off in practice.
“They’re locked in. They had a good week of practice, especially on defense,” Wood said “Offense was pretty good, but our defense, it was clicking. They were especially locked in this week.”
H-D’s defense had two more takeaways in the second half. Sophomore Triston Ramsey picked up a fumble and King had several good runs on the ensuing drive, capped by a 1-yard run around the edge to put H-D up 14-7 with 4:07 left in the third quarter.
Franklin’s defense was also strong all game, and stopped the attempted 2-point conversion run to stay within seven points.
Senior defensive back Harrison Kaplan had six tackles to help lead Franklin’s D and also finished with 77 rushing yards.
The Tornadoes responded with an 8-yard TD run from junior Cameron Labrecque (38 rushing yards, all in the second half) and Johnson kicked the extra point to tie the game 14-14 on the first play of the fourth quarter.
But H-D continued to respond and adjust, with King scoring another 1-yarder (Franklin stopped the 2-point conversion attempt) to make it 20-14 with 7:23 left in the game. The Tornadoes drove all the way to the 9-yard line, but King intercepted another pass to end Franklin’s final drive.
King gave all the credit to the team’s new defensive coordinator, Mike Currid.
“We were prepared all week, (Currid) knew what play they were going to run before (Franklin) did,” King said.
Captain Logan Lane, the only senior on the roster, who anchored the defense at outside linebacker added, “We’re constantly communicating to make sure that if something doesn’t work well, we work it out and we fix it. We’re always working on the fly.”
The Hillcats weren’t out of the woods yet, as they had the ball back, but were pinned on their own 6 with 1:21 to play. Franklin nearly had a safety, with Bennett completing a tackle in the end zone, but the referees ruled forward progress to keep the ball in H-D’s hands.
The Hillcats eventually faced third and 5 from their own 10 yard line, but King ripped off a 77 yard scamper up the sideline, giving H-D a new set of downs and the ability to take a knee to run out the clock.
“Just go, go, go,” said King, “I was thinking, I’ve got to do this for my team. .. We love to see the town here (supporting us). It’s a great feeling.”
For Franklin, it was another lesson in how to manage a tightly-contested game. The Tornadoes won their week one matchup with a narrow 7-6 victory over Farmington-Nute.
“The boys played hard both sides of the ball the whole game, both teams did,” Franklin head coach Tim Snow said. “ It came down to a couple of mistakes and a couple of plays and we fell a little short.”
In addition to the Tornadoes strong D, Franklin also had bright spots on offense, especially the play of first-year quarterback Holmes, and the offensive line of seniors Matt Nason and Allen Emery, juniors Bennett and Jacob Adler, and freshman Lucas Houten.
“A lot like (All-State quarterback Zeke McCoy), Nate is very gritty,” Snow said. “He’s not afraid to tuck the ball and run. He knows if nothing is there to pass to just tuck it and run, and he did a great job with that. The line did a great job picking up the blocks when the play broke down.”
“My hat’s off to (Franklin),” Wood said. “They’re a good football team. And they’re big. They’ve got some players for Division IV, but we got by them. They played well, we played well, we made the plays at the end.”
Saturday was also especially gratifying for Wood, whose goal since day one as H-D’s athletic director was to bring football to Hillsboro. Even before he had that job, the lack of football in the neighboring communities was something that was apparent to him when he first moved to Contoocook in 1999.
“When we first moved to Contoocook and my girls were at the Harold Martin School, I volunteered there and I asked around why there was no football,” Wood said. “I was told by someone, ‘Jay, there will never be football here. This is a soccer town.’”
For the first five years of Wood’s time at HDHS, the school board and community resisted the idea. But when Jim O’Rourke became the principal at the high school, he and Wood began discussing the idea of forming a cooperative program with Hopkinton.
In 2014, the Hillsboro-Deering/Hopkinton Redhawks competed in its first season as a JV program and in 2016 the program played at the varsity level where it stayed for eight years before it dissolved at the end of last season due to low participation from Hopkinton.
“The Redhawk boosters did a phenomenal job,” Wood said. “The work that they did was astronomical, it was a huge amount of work to get a football program, it’s one of the most expensive sports. That work has been passed on to the Hillsboro boosters and they’re still a big supporter and provide (a lot of) the funding.”
Wood also credited the maintenance team and grounds crew for converting H-D’s practice field into a game field on “The Hill” over the summer.
“I think the field looks pretty damn good. It was all mud and dirt, for many years,” Wood said.
The Hillcats were locked in the game the whole way through, but when Wood spared a glance at the sideline, he couldn’t help but notice the size of crowd, about a couple hundred strong.
“We usually got decent crowds over at Hopkinton, but I don’t know where all of those people were coming from. Today, I turned around a couple times and there were quite a few present Hillsboro-Deering kids, people who have graduated (from HDHS), a lot of teachers,” Wood said. “That’s something different with the program just being Hillsboro. And the kids put on a good show for them.”
The Hillcats have two more home games on their schedule, their homecoming matchup against Bishop Brady on Oct. 5 and their season finale against Raymond, the only other remaining 2-0 team in Division IV, on Nov. 2.