Londonderry football overcomes penalties, turnovers to beat Windham (video)

WINDHAM - Jimmy Lauzon knows that if the Londonderry High School football team has an afternoon in November like it did Saturday, it won't be playing for long.

The Lancers coach is hoping, after what happened against Windham, that the players will realize it, too.

Londonderry overcame 16 penalties and three lost fumbles to remain undefeated, picking up a 42-13 win over Windham in a Division I South Conference game.

On a day where the officials threw more flags (29) than the teams combined for pass attempts (25), getting the victory was nice, but there are lesson that Lauzon hopes his team will learn.

"It overshadows it," the coach said. "We’ve got learn from it, otherwise I’d probably burn this tape and move on to the next game, but we’ve got to get better from it.

"We didn’t play well in the first half. We deserved a lot of the penalties, no doubt about it. Then somewhere along the lines in the second half, it just felt like maybe Windham sensed we were a little on edge and were trying to provoke us a little bit. We fell right into it. Shame on us. We’ve got to be better and more mature."

Six of the penalties called on the Lancers (6-0) were for defensive encroachment, four of which came on Windham's opening drive of the game. In all, the Jaguars picked up five first downs off Londonderry infractions and they finished the game with just 16 more yards (146) than the Lancers had in penalties (130).

Drew Heenan made his third-straight start at quarterback for Londonderry and continued his strong play, completing 7 of 8 passes for 99 yards and two touchdowns. Colby Ramshaw caught two of those scores, as his both his receptions went for touchdowns and 20 yards. Andrew Kullman added two catches for 48 yards and a score and also had 73 yards rushing and a touchdown.

Grady Daron also caught a touchdown pass from Heenan and Riley Boles scored a rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter for the Lancers.

"They have a lot of guys who can do things," Windham coach Jack Byrne said. "They have great coaches who make good decisions. You really have to be very multiple. Wherever you put your pieces Xs and Os wise, you’ve still got to tackle and you’ve got to get off blocks. With our guys, they’re going to fight as hard as they can, but it’s tough getting off some blocks."

Windham (1-5) quarterback Josh Sweeney started the game for the Jaguars, but an injury necessitated a switch at halftime, and Billy Depietro played most of the second half. The pair combined to go 12 of 17 for 87 yards and two touchdowns.

David Croteau led Windham with six catches for 29 yards and a touchdown and Cole Peterson caught three balls for 43 yards and a score.

But the Jaguars had some trouble of their own with penalties in the second half, as they were flagged eight times for 51 yards. Windham also turned the ball over on downs five times, three of which came inside the Jaguars 40-yard line.

Every play the Lancers' offense ran in the fourth quarter was on Windham's side of the field.

"There were a lot of good things," Lauzon said. "Drew did a great job throwing. They were giving us that. In the second half, I wanted to kill clock. I didn’t want to throw it around with a two-score lead, but they got us in the backfield. We knew they were capable of doing that. They create a lot of negative plays. Once you find something that works, we just went with that."