Run game, defense lead East to win over West in CHaD East-West All-Star Football Game

DURHAM - All-star caliber athletes make big plays in big moments.

In the fourth quarter of Saturday night's CHaD East-West All-Star Football Game, the East team was in need of a big play.

With the East up four points, West running back Ryan Toscano (Bedford) was gashing the East defense for the first time all game, getting his team down to the 18-yard line with under three minutes to play.

But on second-and-1, Toscano picked up two yards, but the ball was knocked free by Devin Miller (Winnacunnet) and Nick Lombard (Pinkerton) recovered for the East, returning the fumble to the West 16-yard line. The East's Zach Gibbons ended up missing a 26-yard field goal, but used up enough of the clock to hold on for a 17-13 win at the University of New Hampshire's Wildcat Stadium.

Its the third time in eight games the East has come away with a win and it snapped a two-game win streak by the West in front of a crowd of 2,595. The East's Gannon Fast (Pinkerton) was named the Bo Dickson Most Valuable Player after he rushed for 139 yards on 23 carries, helping the East to a nine-minute edge in time of possession.

"That was what we were going to try to do," said East coach Jimmy Lauzon (Londonderry). It’s an all-star game, we were going to try to throw some passes and give people what they want to see. We did throw a few, but the game plan was to own clock.

"Coach (Mark) Tilton told me if Fast ran for a hundred, we’d win. He was right."

As a team, the East rushed for 169 yards and outgained the West 303-193. But whenever the East got inside the red zone, it had to get away from the game plan.

After the West went up 7-0 on a 2-yard touchdown run by Toscano on its first drive of the game, the East answered by moving down inside the West 10. But the defense held and Gibbons kicked a 25-yard field goal to get the East on the board.

The East opened the second quarter with a 10-play, 52-yard drive that ended with a 4-yard touchdown pass from Evan Cormier (Londonderry) to Joe MacDougall (Winnacunnet) that put the East up 10-7. Cormier finished the game 7 of 12 for 73 yards through the air while MacDougall had three catches for 27 yards.

"It went exactly as planned, except for when we got down to the 20 and tried to pound it in," Lauzon said. "They gave us a bit of a different front and we had to do different things. We got MacDougall on the touchdown, we tried to run to the outside a couple of times. It’s tough. In a week, you don’t really have that contingency type plan for different looks."

Down 10-7 at halftime, the West was able to regain the lead in the third with an 11-play, 78-yard drive that ended with Zach Miles (Concord) connecting with Ben Eichman (Merrimack) for a 31-yard touchdown. The extra point by Madison Lucontoni (Bedford) was blocked by Adam Gray (Exeter) to keep it 13-10 West with 57 seconds left in the quarter.

Miles and Eichman were bright spots for the West offense, as the Concord quarterback had 46 yards rushing and was 5 for 11 for 60 yards while Eichman had 124 all-purpose yards, including four catches for 52 yards.

"I think our boot passes and our rollout passes, they did a good job defending that," said West coach Eric Brown (Concord). "They took that away. Zach played well. When he’s scrambling and making things happen, he’s pretty good. I thought we’d be able to get the corner a little easier, but they did a good job.

"Their physicality up front, especially their offensive line. We had a hard time defending their run game for the better part of the game. We had some moments, but they were very good."

The East responded right away, going on an 11-play drive of its own, this one covering 72 yards before Gennaro Marra found the end zone from 3 yards out, outrunning two West defenders to the pylon, to make it 17-13 with 10:59 to play.

"They closed fast on me," Marra said. "We knew they were keying Gannon, considering how he was having a hell of a night. We faked to him and I got the corner. I saw the pylon and new it was a 20-yard run to beat them to the pylon and I was able to do it."

The West turned the ball over on downs on its next possession, but appeared to catch a break when Fast was hit by Brian Montminy (Nashua North), causing a fumble that was recovered by Tristan Wood (Merrimack). Wood finished with a game-high 12 tackles, two fumbles recovered and an interception.

The East defense forced a punt, but facing fourth-and-1 at the West 48, Cormier was stopped for no gain, setting up West's final shot at taking the lead. The defense again came up with a stop for the East.

"Our defense played great," Lauzon said. "(Salem coach Rob) Pike did a great job with defense. Our outside linebackers came up huge, Will Michaud (Salem) and Gray made some big-time tackles. Their quarterback was tough to get a hold of and contain and those guys seemed to be there making plays."