Souhegan gets back on track with win over Pembroke

PEMBROKE – One play doesn’t always make a difference in a game decided by 47 points.

But in the Souhegan High School football team’s 54-7 win over Pembroke Academy on Saturday it could have been a game-changer.

The Spartans found some success against the Sabers’ defense by running a quarterback handoff option and Pembroke’s Joshua Ellsworth ran it three straight times to move the Spartans from Souhegan’s 48-yard line to the 2 with two minutes left in the first half.

On first down from the 2, with the Sabers up 20-7, Ellsworth carried again, but this time, he ran into Souhegan’s Eric Dwinell and Ryan Bullard, coughing up the ball. Nick Hession recovered at the 4 and on the next play, Chris Chininis went 96 yards to the end zone to put Souhegan up 28-7.

“That was huge,” Souhegan linebacker Colin Ginnard said. “We got on our heels too quickly. That was great. First play, right up the middle, it takes a lot of pressure off the defense.”

The touchdown by Chininis capped a strange first half for Souhegan.

The Sabers (4-0 in Division III, 5-1 overall) finished with 180 yards of offense, but ran just 15 plays. Three of Souhegan’s drives lasted just one play, and two of those ended in turnovers, the second of which Pembroke turned into its only touchdown of the game.

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Ellsworth led the way for the Spartans (0-5, 0-6), rushing for 128 yards, 83 of which came in the first half when he had the Sabers falling for the option run.

“I think the quarterback did a nice job reading our interior line, figuring out when exactly to hand the ball off to his back,” Souhegan coach Mike Beliveau said. “We seemed to have (the back) corralled pretty good, and at the last second, (the quarterback) pulled it and instead of running latterly, he came down hill. He found a few seams.”

Souhegan made adjustments at halftime on both sides of the ball and found a way to slow down Pembroke’s running game, holding the Spartans to 72 yards in the second half.

“We couldn’t get to him, he was running real well,” Ginnard said of Ellsworth. “We had our defensive tackles go after the quarterback and I was just worried about the running back.”

Chininis led Souhegan with 115 yards rushing on just three carries and also had a 45-yard punt return for a touchdown. Mike Luks went 12-of-15 passing for 120 yards and two touchdowns, finding Brendan McKenna (three receptions, 25 yards) and Nick Hession (three, 36) for short scoring plays in the second half.

“We made some adjustments and had a real good second half,” Beliveau said. “It’s halftime, you’ve got a bunch of guys who practice offense all week. Some guys want to be running the ball, some guys want to be throwing the ball. Coaches are saying we need to practice our screen game and I’m thinking, if I’ve got this right, we might have run 15 plays in the first half. It’s a team game and that’s what everyone has to buy into.”

Nick Calvetti and Chris Almeida also had touchdown runs for the Sabers in the first half, and Robbie McCormick and Brandon O’Connell added rushing touchdowns in the second half.

The win gives Souhegan sole possession of first place in Division III heading into Friday’s home game against Milford. The Spartans, who handed Bedford its first loss this week, are one of four teams behind the Sabers who have just one loss in the division.