TURNERS FALLS — A dream start for the Franklin Tech football team Saturday soon turned into a slugfest and then a struggle against one-way traffic throughout the second half.
Thirteen seconds into the action, Tech led 8-0 after Max Brunette ran the opening kickoff back 80 yards for a score and added the two-point conversion run. Cape Cod Tech then proceeded to pitch a shutout over the final 2 1/2 quarters and rallied back with the final 22 points of the game. The seventh-seeded Crusaders made their trip from Harwich more than worthwhile, picking off the No. 2 seed Eagles, 30-16, in the state vocational small school quarterfinal round.
Franklin Tech (7-3) now prepares for its Thanksgiving morning home date against rival Smith Vocational, which lost to Pathfinder 42-12 in another vocational quarterfinal Friday night. Pathfinder, the No. 3 seed, will now host Cape Cod Tech in next weekend’s state semifinals.
Thomas Allen ran for a game-high 194 yards and a touchdown for the Crusaders (6-4), who relied heavily on chunk plays to keep Franklin Tech constantly off guard. In all, Cape Cod Tech had four rushing plays and three pass completions of at least 20 yards, and bossed the total offense category with 335 yards to the Eagles’ 127.
The hosts’ four second-half possessions ended in a punt, two red-zone interceptions, and a turnover on downs, with only two first downs and 11 yards gained in that span.
“That team is everything we knew they were,” said Eagles coach Joe Gamache. “They’ve got some athletes and they’re capable of making some big plays, and they certainly hit a few of those on us. They outplayed us overall. Offensively, we sputtered a little bit. We got a little dose of our own physicality today; that has been an advantage for us in the games we’ve won.
“These kids deserve the opportunity that’s in front of them,” Gamache continued. “They were a seven seed and they come up and knock off the two, so it shows that giving more teams the opportunity is worthwhile. To have something like this to play for is huge.”
The vocational state tournament expanded this year from two to three divisions, small, medium and large schools, and from four to eight teams within each division.
Brunette gathered in the opening kickoff at his own 20 and swept up the right sideline, just in front of the Eagles’ bench, to go the distance.
Cape Cod Tech dialed up its first big play of the day when Allen broke loose for 57 yards down to the Franklin Tech 6. Two played later, Chaz Thomas carried it in from the 2, then ran in the tying two-pointer, as the Crusaders needed only 1:33 to get the game back to even.
Each team then turned the ball over on downs in plus territory, then exchanged punts, allowing Franklin Tech to start at its own 29. Mason Bassett hit Hunter Donahue for 29 yards on first down at the Cape Cod Tech 42, then threw another 10-yarder to Donahue. The Crusaders then jumped offside on fourth-and-4 at the 23 for another Eagle first down. Brady Gancarz finished the drive with a 7-yard TD run, with Mason Bassett throwing to Cole Bassett for the conversion and a 16-8 Eagles lead with 7:42 to go in the half.
The Crusaders had a quick answer, with quarterback Daniel Handville connecting on a swing pass to Thomas for 61 yards all the way to the Franklin Tech 1. Two plays later, Handville dove in for the score, although Thomas was denied on the two-point rush attempt with 4:26 remaining. Both teams finished the half with punts as Franklin Tech led 16-14 at the break.
Taking the second-half kickoff, Cape Cod Tech was in business with a 29-yard gain by Allen on the first play from scrimmage and a 26-yard pass from Handville to Thomas that put the ball at the Franklin Tech 9. Three false-start calls and a sack of Handville by Nate Sabolevski set the Crusaders back to the 31-yard line, and Allen’s deep ball downfield was intercepted by Nolyn Stafford at the 6.
Franklin Tech was then backed up to its own 1 before Joseph DiSciullo could get a punt out of the end zone, with the Crusaders taking over at the Eagles’ 28. On fourth-and-9 from the 27, Handville lofted a pass to the deep right corner of the end zone, reeled in by Jordyn Wilson on a sensational leaping one-handed catch.
Thomas’ two-point conversion run put the visitors ahead, 22-16, with 4:58 on the clock in the third.
“That touchdown catch was just phenomenal. I have no words for that,” said Gamache of Wilson’s play. “That’s an NFL highlight reel play, never mind a high school highlight reel.”
Donahue provided another big special-teams return for the Eagles, a 40-yard runback to the Cape Cod Tech 30. Facing fourth-and-9, Mason Bassett’s pass was intercepted by the Crusaders’ Anthony Bartlett, who ran it back 34 yards to the Eagles’ 48. On the next play from scrimmage, Allen was at it again, taking a counter handoff to the left and to the house. Another two-point run by Thomas made it a 30-16 game at the 2:27 mark.
Franklin Tech benefited from a pair of 15-yard penalties to get as deep as the Cape Cod Tech 20 before a sack and an incompletion. Bassett then threw his second interception in as many series, this one to Landon Marrifield-DePaula at the Crusaders’ 9. The visitors then worked over five minutes off the clock before punting away to the Franklin Tech 20, and the Eagles could only reach their own 36 before losing the ball on downs. Cape Cod Tech ran off the final 2:22 of game action and ended the afternoon with the ball at the Franklin Tech 15.
Handville went 5-of-14 passing for 143 yards for the Crusaders. Thomas was his top target with three catches for 99 yards. After Allen, the other Cape Cod Tech rushers combined for minus-two yards on the ground.
For Franklin Tech, Mason Bassett completed 6-of-18 passes for 48 yards. Donahue accounted for 39 of those yards on his two receptions. Brunette carried 17 times for a team-high 47 yards, with Gancarz adding 25 and Sabolevski 23.
“They did a really nice job of taking away the things that we do well,” said Gamache. “We’re just shifting gears now and focusing on Thanksgiving. I’m not too worried about our preparation. The kids will be ready (for Smith Vocational). They’ll be a little disappointed about tonight, they’ll take a couple of days to think about it, and we’ll focus on what we need to do.”