{"id":41567,"date":"2022-12-01T06:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=41567"},"modified":"2022-12-01T06:01:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T11:01:00","slug":"mcdonald-mates-defeat-shrewsbury-49-39-on-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2022\/12\/01\/mcdonald-mates-defeat-shrewsbury-49-39-on-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonald, mates defeat Shrewsbury, 49-39, on Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"
By John Orrell <\/b>
\n Landmark Correspondent<\/i><\/div>\n

SHREWSBURY \u2014 If it was prolific offense generated by two of this region\u2019s most talented quarterbacks you wanted to see, then Shrewsbury High\u2019s David J. Adams Memorial Field was the place to be on Thanksgiving morning 2022.<\/p>\n

Wachusett football traveled to the home of the Colonials for their annual holiday tilt, and the teams collectively put 88 points on the board. The Mountaineers defeated the hosts, 49-39, with Wachusett QB Tucker McDonald and Shrewsbury QB T.J. Welch putting on a scoring masterpiece. McDonald, who was named team MVP for the game, registered six passing touchdowns and one rushing score while Welch was nearly unstoppable, running for 5 TDs and passing for one.<\/p>\n

With the victory, Wachusett concludes its season with a record of 8-3; at the same time, the team vaulted past its own school record of points in a season with 455. The victory tightens the gap for Thanksgiving play, which is in Shrewsbury\u2019s advantage, 5-4, since resuming holiday competition in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we were going to take them down,\u201d said Wachusett receiver Matthew Raeke with conviction. \u201cWe were very confident coming in, but we still played as hard as we could. Ours is a very high-powered offense, and they also have a terrific offense. It doesn\u2019t surprise me that the score was as high as it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we knew that last year we weren\u2019t all there and ended up losing, so this year we made an emphasis to take this game seriously and we came out with the win,\u201d said running back Aiden McGeary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe practiced really hard all week, and last year we took a tough loss, which motivated us all to beat them,\u201d added wide receiver Joe Cappabianca, who scored the team\u2019s first touchdown of the morning, an 8-yard toss from McDonald with less than three minutes elapsed in the game. \u201cWe knew they had a good offense, but we had a good offense, too, so we knew it was going to be a shootout.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted this win really bad,\u201d said wide receiver Arturo Johnson, who, along with Grayson Baker, recorded two touchdown receptions. \u201cEver since last year when we lost, we were looking forward to coming back for this. We knew coming onto this field today that we weren\u2019t going to lose. I didn\u2019t expect to score as much as we did, but that\u2019s what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really determined, and we had a good week of practice,\u201d said McDonald, who will be off to UConn next season to compete for the Huskies. \u201cLast year left a sour taste in our mouths throughout the offseason. We wanted to come out here with a bang.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a really fast-paced, high-powered offense, and so do they. We knew it was going to be a shootout. Shrewsbury\u2019s not quitters. They\u2019re going to fight until the last whistle. It\u2019s been a good season for us. The season comes with stumbles and injuries. It\u2019s how you respond to all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teammates, overjoyed with the win and in frenzied celebration, gave props to McDonald, who has provided the leadership backbone to make this season a successful one.<\/p>\n

\u201cTucker\u2019s completely changed this whole program around. Our whole class has,\u201d said Raeke. \u201cWith the athletes we have, we were able to open things up, especially with him throwing the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTucker works as hard as anyone I\u2019ve ever known. He\u2019s the best player I\u2019ve ever played with,\u201d said Cappabianca.<\/p>\n

\u201cTucker\u2019s the best player this program has ever seen,\u201d added Johnson. \u201cFor him to put it all out there on the field and give us all he\u2019s got means everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s victory celebration included junior Wachusett wideout Chris Smith, who was seriously injured in the team\u2019s Nov. 10 matchup with Nashoba Regional. He was said to be improving but has a long way to recover. Players and coaches wore jerseys that read \u201cbrotherhood\u201d on the front and his number, 29, and name on the back.<\/p>\n

Head coach Mike Dubzinski pointed out the team\u2019s determination to win and advised team supporters to next year put this game on the list of priority things to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know what\u2019s going to happen on Thanksgiving\u201d he said. \u201cShrewsbury\u2019s a great team and a great opponent. If people are looking for something to do on Thanksgiving morning, come out to the Wachusett\/ Shrewsbury game, because you\u2019re going to be entertained.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SHREWSBURY \u2014 If it was prolific offense generated by two of this region\u2019s most talented quarterbacks you wanted to see, then Shrewsbury High\u2019s David J. Adams Memorial Field was the place to be on Thanksgiving morning 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41570,"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-41567","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\/41567","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=41567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}