Monadnock football had confidence in Jasinski on game-winning field goal

Before this season, Isaac Jasinski had never played football.

And before Saturday’s Division III championship game, the Monadnock Regional High School senior had never attempted a field goal in a game.

Despite that, the Huskies had plenty of faith in Jasinski when he ran on the field with six seconds left in a tie game to attempt a 27-yard kick.

"I knew he had it in him," Monadnock senior quarterback Tim Santaw said. "I looked at him and said ‘we need this from you’ and he said ‘I got it.’ It was like a regular kick in practice and he booted it right through."

Jasinski's kick gave the Huskies a 15-12 win over Campbell, avenging last year's championship game loss at the hands of the Cougars getting the seniors the title that had eluded them despite having not lost a regular-season game since moving to D3 before the 2016 season.

"It was great," Jasinski said of helping Monadnock win the title. "I’m a soccer player and to join (the team) was a little intimidating for me. They let me right in and I love being with them, and I think they love me on the team. It was a great season."

It might have been the first time Jasinski attempted a game-winner, but fellow senior Chandler Matson knew his classmate was up for the moment.

"That kid, everyone may regard him as just a kicker, but he is one heck of an athlete," Matson said. "I play lacrosse with him and the moves I see that kid put on, making defenders look silly. He’s an athlete."

When the Huskies (12-0) took over at at their own 28-yard line with 4:57 left in the game, Jasinski thought it was time for him to start to get loose.

"Once we got the ball and were going through that final drive," he said, "I was like ‘all right, gotta go through my motions and get ready and put this one through the uprights.'"

Although Monadnock had been working on its kicking game more in the playoffs, that wasn't what was on the mind of coach Ryan Avery as the Huskies began chipping away at Campbell's defense.

"We’ve been practicing it, so I felt good about it," the coach said. "We weren’t really thinking distance, we were thinking end zone."

.But what the Huskies ended up running out of was time. With 19 seconds left, and Monadnock facing a fourth and 1 at the Campbell 17-yard line, Avery took his final timeout.

On the day, Monadnock averaged 3.3 yards per play, and just 2.6 yards per rushing attempt, against the Cougars' defense. Matson rumbled for three yards to get the first down and Santaw spiked the ball to stop the clock.

Now at the Campbell 14, Santaw bootlegged to his right, looking to throw, but when nothing was there, the senior scrambled for four years and got out of bounds, stopping the clock with six seconds remaining.

"Overtime was going to be a whole other dog fight," Santaw said. "We didn’t want to go through that."

Jasinski rushed on to the field, and despite having an extra point blocked on Monadnock's previous touchdown, he was confident the kick was going to be good, even after Campbell took a timeout to let him think about the field goal a little more.

"I wasn’t going to let that take over any of my thinking," he said. "I was going to go out there and do my best and put that one through the uprights. Nothing changed when they called the timeout. We’re going to go out there and do what we do. I looked up and I thought it was a little bit too left, but it just snuck in through the left upright.

"Every now and then, I was like ‘it’d be cool to kick a game-winner.’ It feels great."