Pinkerton football outlasts Windham to return to D1 semifinals

DERRY – Matt Morrison was sick all week and purely running on adrenaline throughout his Pinkerton Academy football team’s Division I quarterfinal matchup against Windham on Friday night, but he mustered enough energy to close out the Jaguars.

After a 55-yard punt return for a touchdown in the first quarter, the senior workhorse running back churned out 96 yards on 16 carries in the final 15:45 of fourth-seeded Pinkerton’s 14-6 victory over No. 12 Windham on Memorial Field.

“I just wanted the ball,” Morrison said. “I knew if the ball was in my hands that we could close this out.”

The closer role inherited by Morrison (21 carries, 136 yards) came after a 20-plus minute stretch that saw Pinkerton run one offensive play, which was a fumble by Jamie Isaac midway through the second quarter.

Isaac (eight carries, 51 yards) gave Pinkerton a 7-0 in his return from a concussion with an 18-yard touchdown run with 8:28 left in the first quarter.

“Both teams came out ready to fight,” Morrison said. “We made a bunch of mistakes in the first half and it was a battle coming back from that after that. We just came together and held on.”

Pinkerton (8-2) makes its third straight trip to next week’s Division I semifinals. The Astros will play the winner of Saturday’s game between No. 8 Alvirne (7-3) and top-seeded, two-time defending champion Bedford (8-0).

“We expected this and we knew (Windham) was going to try and take as much time off the clock as they could,” Pinkerton coach Bill O’Reilly said. “”We faltered with the turnover in the second quarter and couldn’t get off the field for some reason.”

Windham (4-6) ran 25 of the 26 offensive plays in the second quarter and prolonged a drive on Chris Brearley’s 10-yard run on fourth-and-10 that gave Windham the ball at Pinkerton’s 33-yard line to help set up a memorable end to the first half.

On fourth-and-6 with 5.6 seconds remaining, a pass from Adrian Bergman deflected off a Pinkerton defender into the hands of Romeo Akin for a 23-yard score as time expired to send Windham into halftime trailing 14-6.

“(Brearley) has got some speed and a lot of those third- and fourth-down runs, he was just able to get around the corner,” O’Reilly said. “On the pass, we knew it was coming. You tell kids don’t tip the ball; punch it down.”

Windham was aiming for its second straight upset following last week’s 8-7 opening-round win over No. 5 Salem.

“It was pretty cool to see our guys not quit,” Windham coach Jack Byrne said. “When you have the real positive emotion from last week, you can go into that mode of ‘well, at least we beat Salem.' They didn’t do that. Our guys turned the page quick and they kept fighting.”

Pinkerton finally got the ball with 3:45 left in the third quarter and Morrison carried seven straight times for 46 yards before the drive stalled at Windham’s 36 with 9:31 left in the fourth quarter.

Morrison missed four games with a broken left pinky before returning in a cast during last week’s 38-14 opening round win over Merrimack. There was no cast this week when Morrison ended the game with a 7-yard run.

“There was nobody else I was going to give the ball to,” O’Reilly said. “Matt’s a hard-nosed runner and I know he’s going to take care of the ball. And he was sick as a dog (Friday).”