By Dan Barile
Eagle Times Correspondent
LANGDON, NH — Coming into week 7 of the New Hampshire high school football season, the most intriguing Division 3 matchup on paper featured the Inter-Lakes-Moultonborough Lakers and the Fall Mountain Wildcats on Friday, Oct. 13.
Fall Mountain entered the game at 5-1 and in 3rd place in the Division 3 standings. The Lakers were positioned in the fourth and final playoff spot at 4-2.
Despite the seemingly even matchup, the Lakers gained 173 yards in the first half and held the Wildcats to just 30 yards.
On the opening drive of the game, the Lakers ran 13 plays for 67 yards as they methodically moved the ball downfield. Attempting their second fourth down conversion of the drive, the Lakers were successful again when Brayden Arruda connected with Lincoln Ferrante for a 9-yard touchdown pass. The Lakers added the extra point to take a 7-0 lead with 4:50 remaining in the first quarter.
After failing to earn a first down during their only first quarter possession, Fall Mountain opened the second quarter with back-to-back first down runs by Eric Franklin Jr. and Owen Riendeau to advance the ball to the Lakers 32-yard line. The drive quickly came to a halt after the Lakers forced three incomplete passes and stuffed a run in the backfield over the next four plays.
The Lakers lead would remain at 7-0 until the final minute of the first half. After advancing the ball to the Fall Mountain 17-yard line, the Lakers threw three straight incomplete passes and had a false start to force a fourth down and 15 from the Wildcats 22-yard line. Yet again, the Lakers converted on fourth down when Brian Uyler made a diving catch in the endzone on a pass fired by Arruda. The Lakers added another extra point to take a 14-0 lead with 30 seconds left until halftime.
The long touchdown pass on fourth down was a blow to a Wildcats team, which had already lost Charlie Dussault for the game due to injury and saw limited action from Josh DeVore following a first quarter collision.
Fall Mountain held the Lakers to 96 yards in the second half; however, the Wildcats were only able to muster 70 yards of their own.
The only score of the second half occurred when the Lakers started their drive at the Fall Mountain 15-yard line following a turnover. On the fourth play of the drive, Arruda threw his third touchdown pass of the night on a 4-yard throw to Uyler. The Lakers extended their lead to 21-0 with 8:59 left in the game.
Fall Mountain advanced the ball to the Lakers 23-yard line on their final possession of the game before a fumbled handoff was pounced on by the Lakers. The Lakers ran out the clock and ended Fall Mountain’s five-game winning streak with a 21-0 victory.
Fall Mountain Head Coach Orion Binney shared his thoughts on the tough loss after the game.
“We were flat all game if I can be completely honest. We’re not good enough to play like that. When we play well, we play with high energy, and we just didn’t have that from the start of the football game,” he said. “They’re big, they’re athletic, they’re a tough football team, but we just didn’t play the physical nature of football we had been playing. We were kind of soft and we just can’t play that way.”
Eric Franklin Jr. led Fall Mountain with 8 carries for 49 yards and had a diving interception on defense.
Fall Mountain (5-2) travels to Manchester on Friday, Oct. 20, to face Trinity (6-1) at 6 p.m. Trinity is currently in second place in Division 3 and defeated Inter-Lakes-Moultonborough earlier in the season by a score of 42-0.
“We still have a shot at the playoffs, but we just made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be,” Binney said.
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