East gets second straight win over West in CHaD All-Star Football Game

MANCHESTER - It didn't matter to Craig Kozens who stepped up for the East team in Saturday's game.

So why not quarterback Jason Hughes?

Hughes, a standout for Timberlane High School last fall, may have been overshadowed going into the CHaD East-West All-Star Football Game by the signal callers on the other sideline, but the former Owl made sure that didn't matter.

Hughes passed for 179 yards and threw three touchdown passes to help lead the East to a 28-14 win over the West in fifth annual game, held at Saint Anselm College. It was the East's second win in a row, with Kozens leading the way both times, while Hughes was named the Bo Dickson Most Valuable Player.

"It starts with good people and (Hughes) is a great kid," said Kozens. "With that comes great leadership, and with that becomes a maturity, and with that becomes a great player. He made mistakes, he wasn't perfect, but he was mature enough to play through them and carry us when we needed it. He did all the little things."

Nick Donnelly (Londonderry) caught two of those touchdown passes from Hughes, and had 40 yards receiving on three catches. Hunter Long (Exeter) had four receptions for 87 yards and a touchdown while Brian Auffant returned an interception of West's JT Hiscoe (Bishop Guertin) 50 yards for the first score of the game.

The West held the edge in yards (364-250), first down (23-14) and time of possession (33:26-26:34), but two first half turnovers led to touchdowns for the East. Four other times in the first three quarters, the West drove across midfield and ended up with nothing to show for it.

"Our offense sputtered in the first half," West coach Paul Lavigne said. "We'd go a couple a first downs, and then we'd shoot ourselves in the foot.

"I think our quarterbacks, in the spread, the timing was good all week, and then (Saturday) we sputtered. They looked a little tentative throwing the ball, but then the second half they picked it up a little bit. Penalties hurt us, but we’ve got to live with it."

Connor Bourque (Goffstown) led the West with 119 yards rushing on 22 carries and Casey Gervais (Goffstown) had 128 yards passing and two touchdowns, both of which came in the fourth quarter after the East went up 28-0. Nick Lorden (Bishop Guertin) caught five passes for 49 yards and a score and Ian Roberts (Merrimack) added two catches for 61 yards and a touchdown.

Neither team did much early on, until Auffant stepped in front of a short pass by Hiscoe intended for Lorden, intercepting the ball near midfield and outracing everyone else to the end zone. The kick by Kyle Chiasson made it 7-0 East with 2:24 left in the first quarter.

"Auffant jumped that, and we practiced that all week, and he jumped it and got it," Kozens said. "That was exactly what the doctor ordered. We just come out and go against sets, and every set, we expected we saw, and obviously we were prepared for it."

The teams traded punts on the next five drives before Hughes was picked off by Jackson Housman (Bishop Guertin), giving West the ball at its own 38 late in the half.

But on the next play, Hiscoe tried to scramble and lost the ball when he was hit hard by Keith Schultz (Laconia). Theodore Scarlett (Kennett) recovered at the West 37, and five plays later, Hughes found Donnelly for a 12-yard touchdown pass that made it 14-0 with 58 seconds left in the half.

After another interception of Hughes in the third quarter, this time by Tucker Lavigne (Bedford), West put together a drive that got down to the East's 30-yard line. But on fourth down, Hiscoe's pass to Devin Leonard (Nashua North) was out of reach.

East needed just four plays to find the end zone, as Hughes connected with Long for a 50-yard reception to the West 20, and two plays later, hit Donnelly for a 20-yard TD pass.

Hughes then led the East on a 16-play, 76-yard drive that was aided by two pass interference calls against the West, and ended in a 12-yard scoring toss to Long that made it 28-0 with 11:18 to play.

West was able to answer the score with one of its own, going 81 yards on nine plays and ending on Gervais' 39-yard pass to Roberts with 8:03 remaining.

"At one point, when they scored, I panicked, because I thought we were only up two scores," Kozens said. "Then I realized we were up three scores. You just get going. We were seeing what they were giving us, and getting good information from the booth, and we started picking it apart. We had to run some clock, but we still had some places we could go."