Milford grinds its way to win over Londonderry

MILFORD – The 2011 football season didn’t exactly get off to the start the Milford High School wanted it to.

It didn’t take long for the Spartans to fix that Friday night.

Londonderry scored on the game’s opening drive, but Milford buckled down on defense and controlled the clock on offense to pull out a 13-6 win over a tough Division I opponent. The Spartans had the ball for nearly 20 minutes in the first half, and limited the Lancers to only 11 plays on offense, including just three in the second quarter.

And when Londonderry finally got things going late in the fourth quarter, Milford had just enough to hang on for one of its biggest ones.

“We just beat a very good football team,” Milford coach Keith Jones said. “We started out slow there on their first drive. We let them go right down the field. But we buckled down and we started to execute what we did all week. We just played what we thought would be an in-the-trenches game. That’s what we do, that’s what they do.”

What Milford did was eat up the clock in the first half with an offense that moved efficiently, despite its snail-like pace.

The Spartans had just three drives in the first half, but two of those lasted longer than 10 plays and went for touchdowns.

Kyle Higgins and Connor Borne combined for 177 of Milford’s 206 yards on the ground, as the Spartans (1-0) ran the ball 56 times for an average of just over 4 yards per carry.

“That’s my kind of football,” Jones said. “Usually we want 3 yards and a cloud of dust. We got that tonight.”

Higgins finished with 94 yards and a touchdown while Borne added 83 yards, but it was Milford’s second scoring drive that epitomized the Spartans’ offense.

With 9:08 left to play in the first half, Milford got the ball at Londonderry’s 44-yard line. From there, the Spartans slowly marched toward the end zone, putting together a 14-play drive that ended on a fourth-and-goal play from the 1 with 4.2 seconds to go before halftime.

Higgins lost the handoff from quarterback Bud Theriault, but Theriault was in the right place and fell on the ball in the end zone to put Milford up 13-6 at the break. Only two plays on the drive went for more than 6 yards – an 8-yard run by Borne and a 15-yard pass play from Theriault to Thomas Scannell.

“(Theriault) followed the play like he was supposed to and he was smart and jumped in the end zone,” Jones said.

Londonderry got on the board first, taking the game’s opening drive and going 66 yards in five plays to go on top 6-0 on a 2-yard run by Parilla. The Lancers (0-1) went for two, but Parilla was stopped short on the conversion.

Milford responded with an 11-play, 59-yard scoring drive that ended with a 1-yard plunge by Higgins. The extra point by Richie Moore put the Spartans in front 7-6.

The Lancers ran only six more plays in the first half, including just three in the second quarter. Aside from its first drive, Londonderry had just 3 total yards of offense.

“Our coaches are really good at kicking our butts and keeping us driving,” Milford defensive end Ben Smith said of how the Spartans rallied after the Londonderry touchdown. “We have to dig down deep at practice every day. I expected them to pound it as hard as they did, maybe even a little harder. But that’s a good, strong offense. We practiced for weeks preparing for that.”

The Spartans twice had a chance to make it a two-score game in the fourth quarter, but Borne was stopped on fourth-and-goal from the 1 and Londonderry blocked a 27-yard field goal attempt by Morgan Andrews.

The Lancers took over at their 13 with 2:27 to play after the missed field goal and finally got the offense going. Londonderry drove 80 yards to set up a fourth-and-goal from the Milford 7, but with 13 seconds left in the game, Dylan Cole’s pass to Parilla was incomplete.