{"id":40310,"date":"2022-09-15T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelandmark.testsite.cherryroad.news\/2022\/09\/15\/wachusett-falls-to-franklin-in-season-opener\/"},"modified":"2022-09-15T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T10:00:00","slug":"wachusett-falls-to-franklin-in-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2022\/09\/15\/wachusett-falls-to-franklin-in-season-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Wachusett falls to Franklin in season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"
Rich <\/b>Garven <\/b>(rgarven@telegram.com) <\/b>Reporter<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

HOLDEN \u2014 It was \u201cNeon Night\u201d in The Badlands, and the Wachusett Regional student section was lit up after the Mountaineers pulled within three points of Franklin with 9:06 to play.<\/p>\n

But the Panthers responded to the scoring runs of seniors Tucker McDonald (touchdown) and Aidan McGeary (conversion), twice converting on third down during a 10-play TD drive that consumed nearly six minutes to secure a 32-22 win Sept. 9 before a large crowd at Hal Lane Field.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t play in the state semifinals (last season) and return a host of starters and not be a good team,\u201d Wachusett coach Mike Dubzinski said of Franklin following the season opener for these Division 1 powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I\u2019m not happy. I\u2019m happy with the effort, but I\u2019m not happy with the outcome. But the kids will get some rest and we\u2019ll go back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers got off to a terrific start, reaching the end zone on their first and third drives with the 6-foot-1, 200-pound McGeary scoring on runs of 3 and 4 yards and Ben Dominick adding the extra points to take a 14-7 lead into the second quarter.<\/p>\n

McDonald was 5-of-6 passing for 61 yards, including first-down strikes of 29 and 19 yards to senior wideout Matt Raeke, to open the game. But the UConn commit was 5 of 22 for 21 yards and one first down with three interceptions the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

The Panthers applied some serious pocket pressure, particularly with their interior rush, from the opening snap as they battered, banged and pounded Mc-Donald, who was visibly exhausted following the physical and penalty-filled proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were bringing more guys than we could block,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cThey have some really athletic down linemen, some really athletic linebackers. We have stuff to work on up front, but I was pretty pleased with our overall effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then added: \u201cThey pretty much took away our pass game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers had success running the ball, with McGeary finishing with 40 yards, the aforementioned two TDs and three additional first downs on seven carries, while McDonald dashed his way to 138 yards on nine carries, highlighted by a pair of amazing jaunts of 59 and 40 yards in the second half.<\/p>\n

But passing remained the priority. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do, we\u2019re going to try to play fast,\u201d Dubzinski said. \u201cWe had some running plays tonight. McGeary ran hard, I thought (Cole) Carelli made a couple of good runs, we just have to execute better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat were we, 10 of 28 (passing)? Completing10 passes, we\u2019re not going to win. So we\u2019ll go back to work and get better. That\u2019s all we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the Panthers, they were consistently able to get their plethora of playmakers into open space, no one more so than the speedy and elusive Luke Davis.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot, 180-pound senior receiver made six receptions for 164 yards, including catch-and-run scores of 52 and 62 yards and a leaping grab of 28 yards in the end zone on which the defender was flagged for pass interference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we did a nice job of getting Luke Davis in some different looks,\u201d Franklin coach Eian Bain said. \u201cNot just in the same spot all the time, and giving our quarterback some different angles to throw the football from.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quarterback would be senior Jose Lyons, who was 13 of 16 for 267 yards and three TDs along with four additional first downs. He was intercepted twice, by junior Grayson Baker and McGeary, and sacked twice, by senior Joe Cappabianca and junior Chris Smith.<\/p>\n

The pass game was complemented by junior Michael Davide, who raced and juked his way to 100 yards and the game-clinching, 3-yard TD run with 2:59 to play, on 17 carries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re so big up front, so what we were trying to do was manipulate numbers in the box,\u201d Bain said. \u201cAnd if they pulled a guy in the box, try to get it out in space. If they had guys out in space, get it in the box.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers will continue their season-opening, four-game home stand when they face Fitchburg (0-1) at 7 p.m. Sept. 16.<\/p>\n

\u2014Contact Rich Garven at rgarven@ <\/i>
\ntelegram.com. Follow him on<\/i><\/p>\n

Twitter <\/i>
\n@RichGarvenTG.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOLDEN \u2014 It was \u201cNeon Night\u201d in The Badlands, and the Wachusett Regional student section was lit up after the Mountaineers pulled within three points of Franklin with 9:06 to play. But the Panthers responded to the scoring runs of seniors Tucker McDonald (touchdown) and Aidan McGeary (conversion), twice converting on third down during a 10-play TD drive that consumed nearly six minutes to secure a 32-22 win Sept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}