Pinkerton football blasts Londonderry to win first D1 title in 10 seasons (video)

EXETER - The Pinkerton Academy football team is always championship driven.

But knowing what the Astros lost last year to graduation, and after a mediocre preseason, longtime coach Brian O'Reilly wasn't quite sure what to expect from this year's team going into the regular season.

Turns out, he had a championship-caliber team, led by a senior who had an all-time title-game performance.

Matt Morrison scored five touchdowns, including one on the opening kickoff, and No. 4 Pinkerton took an early lead and pulled away in the fourth quarter to beat No. 3 Londonderry 42-7 in Saturday's Division I championship game at Bill Ball Stadium in Exeter.

The title is the first for O'Reilly and the Astros since 2014 and the 12th overall since he took over as head coach late in the 1978 season. The win also the 357th of O'Reilly's coaching career, breaking a tie with Plymouth's Chuck Lenahan for the most in New Hampshire high school football.

"This is our 12^th championship team since I’ve been the coach here, I have never had a team with less expectations at the beginning of the season that ultimately won the championship," O'Reilly said. "Those other 11 championship teams, they were good to go from the beginning. This team deserves all the credit."

Morrison is at the top of the list, after he returned the opening kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown, caught a short pass from Aiden McDonald and took it 25 yards for a score just before halftime, and then added three rushing touchdowns in the second half.

The senior finished with 115 yards on the ground and caught three passes for another 36 yards.

"This is everything I would have dreamed of," Morrison said. "Winning a state championship my senior year, with everyone, and beating Londonderry, after they knocked us out the last three years, it’s amazing.

"I’m always trying to be the best version of myself. When people doubt me, it inspires me to do better."

McDonald finished the day 9 of 13 passing for 122 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, with the other touchdown going to Cam Dillon (four catches, 68 yards) on the Astros' first offensive possession of the day.

Pinkerton's offense struck quickly all game, jumping out to a 14-0 lead less than three minutes in, and with four of its five touchdown drives taking up under two minutes. The Astros (11-2) had the ball for just 15 minutes, 54 seconds to Londonderry's 31:16 time of possession.

"Their whole team came to play," Londonderry coach Jimmy Lauzon said. "We had our chances. We were trying to contain (McDonald) and trying to keep us in front of us, and he got away from us a couple of times. Credit to their quarterback, he did a good job."

Sam Ogden led the Lancers (8-4) with 96 yards rushing and a touchdown while going 8 of 15 passing for 93 yards and two interceptions, both in the second half. Adrian Cruz had 57 yards of offense and Mason Paquette caught three passes for 17 yards.

After falling behind by two scores to start the game, Londonderry answered with a 13-play, 69-yard drive that took 7:14 off the clock and ended in Ogden's 6-yard touchdown run.

The Lancers forced Pinkerton to go three-and-out on back-to-back possessions and they looked to be in business after the second Astros' punt. Ogden hit Ethan Wheeler for a 37-yard gain on first down to put Londonderry at the Pinkerton 34-yard line.

The next three plays netted just five yards, but on fourth-and-5, Ogden found Noah Rao for what would have been a first down inside Pinkerton's 15. But as Rao came down on his diving attempt, the impact with the ground led to the pass falling incomplete.

The Astros took over at their own 29 and needed just five plays and 1:24 to go 71 yards. McDonald was 5 for 5 on the drive, with Morrison taking a short pass 25 yards for a score and a 21-7 lead that Pinkerton carried into halftime.

Londonderry got the ball to start the second half and moved down to Pinkerton's 37-yard line, but on fourth-and-11, Ogden was picked off by Riley Spellman, who returned the interception to the Lancers' 45.

Three plays later, Morrison scored from 27 yards out to make it a 28-7 Astros' lead.

"We felt really good at halftime," Lauzon said. "We felt like we had some things, like on some of our run plays, we were like one block away in the first half a couple of times. It was like OK let’s get back to the game plan. Back-to-back holding calls forced us from doing what we wanted to do, and then the next thing you, the game was out of hand quickly."

It was a big momentum swing for Pinkerton, especially after the Astros had struggled to start the second half in previous games.

"Everybody that’s come out against us in the second half has come down and scored," O'Reilly said. "It was just one of those things like could we focus here. When we made that stop and came right back and scored, we were in good shape."

An interception by Jamie Isaac and a turnover on downs by Londonderry early in the fourth quarter set Pinkerton up with short fields, leading to two more touchdown runs by Morrison, the second of which made it a 35-point game with 6:52 to play.

"Our team has always played play by play and you can only change the next play," Morrison said. "We were going to come out with the next play. I definitely believed in this team. No one had experience. Our only strength was being a close-knit team and coming together."