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VARSITY: Mount Mansfield 59, Otter Valley 34
Cougars ground OV rally, will face U-32
Published: Sunday, November 6, 2006
By Tom Haley Herald Staff
COLCHESTER — The Mount Mansfield ground game was such a magnificent mix of power and deception, some onlookers might have wondered why the Cougars bothered to throw the ball even three times. The No. 2 Cougars used that punishing running attack to stun No. 3 Otter Valley 59-34 Saturday night in the Division IV semifinal football game at Colchester High School.
A trio of backs amassed some amazing statistics in moving the ball up and down the field as the Cougars scored touchdowns on their first six possessions. Jack Dubuque had 224 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries. Greg Pinette was the workhorse, piling up 167 yards and scoring two touchdowns on 24 carries. Connor Gallagher sailed for 157 yards and four touchdowns on 17 carries. Mike Shaw had the other touchdown.
Dubuque and Pinette are seniors making the best of their last hurrah.
"Jack and Greg are a lethal 1-2 punch," Mount Mansfield coach Marty Richards said.
Perhaps all of the aliases for great backfield tandems have been used up over all the years of gridiron history: Thunder and Lightning, Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc.
Maybe not. On this one night, Pop and Circumstance might be a fitting moniker for this duo. Dubuque seemed to miraculously escape swarms of Otters and pop out ahead of the field for long runs. It was the circumstance of Pinette returning to the lineup after missing three games with a knee injury that gave the offense its extra explosion.
"Getting Greg back this week was huge," Richards said.
Like all good running backs, Pinette gave kudos to his offensive line.
"After being out three weeks and coming back, seeing how much the line has improved is amazing," Pinette said.
That line gave the backs the sliver of daylight they needed, but Pinette, Dubuque and Gallagher also did so much on their own. They dragged tacklers for extra yardage on nearly every play, simply refusing to go down.
"The boys just blocked their hearts out and ran their brains out," Richards said.
The tone was set moments after the opening kickoff. The Cougars scored on the game's first possession, taking just three plays to go 65 yards. The third play was a 50-yard dash to the end zone by Dubuque.
That would be a familiar sight the rest of the half as the Cougars scored on the first six possessions.
But the Otters answered right back, making it 6-6. Ross Jakubowski gave the Otters the ball on their own 47 with his kickoff return. Two long pass completions from quarterback Corey Robinson, one to Jakubowski and the other to Ryan Faber, brought the ball all the way down to the MMU 10-yard stripe and from there Jakubowski ran for the score.
The Cougars stretched the lead to 20-6 by the end of the first quarter. The Otters looked to be buried when the Cougars got the lead all the way to 34-6 in the second period.
But the defending state champions still had a lot of fight in them and the Otters would eventually cut the lead to six points.
The Otters went to halftime very much in the game, trailing 40-26. Robinson hooked up with Thomas Cole, Faber and Alex Sienkiewicz for TD passes before the break. And when Erik Becker ran over for a 2-point conversion with 10 seconds left in the half, the Otters had to feel their chances for getting back to the title game had improved immeasurably.
Robinson rifled a 19-yard scoring pass to Cole with 8:15 remaining in the third quarter. Robinson then ran for the two points and the lead was all the way down to 40-34.
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But after Gallagher's 1-yard scoring plunge cushioned the lead to 46-34, the Otters never really threatened again to get back in the game.
Robinson was prolific through the air against a relentless pass rush. Forced to throw off his back foot numerous times, he completed 14 of 35 passes for 280 yards and four touchdowns.
Richards made a point of telling Robinson he played a great game during the postgame handshakes.
"He's 17-2 as a quarterback. He's a warrior and he's a leader," OV coach Dennis Perry said of Robinson.
It has been quite a run for Perry and the Otters since he arrived in Brandon just before the beginning of last season. The Otters were undefeated last season and lost only two games this year.
The 55-year-old Perry came to head coaching late, but has already realized three state titles, including back-to-back Division II crowns at Fair Haven.
He said he is already pumped up about next season when the Otters are expected to move up to Division II and begin shaping some new rivalries.
But he felt for his seniors who dearly wanted to get back to the championship game for another crack at U-32, the team that dealt them their only defeat of the regular season. U-32 defeated Montpelier in the other semifinal Saturday night.
That made the night a disappointment, particularly for those OV seniors who had such an amazing run, especially the unbeaten state championship season of 2005 in their inaugural season of 11-man football.
Those seniors honored before the game are Faber, Chris Blais, Robinson, Jakubowski, Cameron Clark, Andrew Stewart, Tim Abare, Becker, Cole, Justin Lefebvre, Nick Hornbeck, Patrick Kane and Ray Cook.
It was a home game for the higher-seeded Cougars, but still had to be played on a neutral field since Mount Mansfield has no game field.
"The most impressive thing is that we were 7-2 and we did this all on the road. Even our home game was an away game," Richards said. "But our fans have been great. Some games we have had more fans than the home team."
Now, they have the challenge of meeting a U-32 team that beat them 55-0 back on Sept. 8.
"That game was a lot of weeks ago. Otter Valley is a good team and after this game, I think our kids know they can play with U-32," Richards said.
"That game was so long ago and our line is so much better now," Pinette said.
Perry was proud of the way his players came all the way back from that 40-12 deficit to slice the lead to six.
"This is a scrappy bunch," Perry said.
"We just did not have an answer for what Mount Mansfield did."
Both coaches felt the other team presented unique problems.
"Otter Valley runs so many formations. They give you a headache," Richards said.
MMU, on the other hand, is quite the opposite, preferring to keep things simple and rely on deception, confusing the defense as to which back has the ball.
"It's the old hidden ball trick and they run it very well," Perry said. "But they just knocked us off the line of scrimmage.
"They only run three or four plays, but you've got to stop it."
The Otters could not. Now, Richards and the Cougars will try the plan on for size against unbeaten U-32.
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