Start of second half key in Timberlane football's win over Souhegan

Kevin Fitzgerald knew the first drive of the second half was going to be important.

Either his Timberlane Regional High School football team was going to go down and score, and take the lead on Souhegan, something that no team had done yet this season.

Or the Owls were going to get stopped and the Sabers would build momentum off it.

Starting at their own 45-yard line, the Owls repeated what they did on their first scoring drive. Timberlane ran the ball on the first seven plays, getting down inside Souhegan's 15, before going to the air.

Quarterback Jeremy Mlocek connected with Jacob Basnett for their second scoring pass of the night, this time from 12-yard out, and the extra point gave Timberlane a 21-20 lead that it would hold the rest of the way.

"Getting out on the first drive and scoring and taking the lead, making them play from behind, which they haven’t done, I think that was big for us," Fitzgerald said. "I wouldn’t have bet that neither team was going to score after that first drive given the way we were moving it. But that’s how the game goes sometimes. I thought it was very important to grab a lead."

The Owls were able to hang on to that lead by keeping the Sabers' offense off the field. Timberlane had the ball for 16 minutes, 19 seconds of the second half and ran 32 plays, to just 18 for Souhegan.

With Eddie DiGiulio (14 carries, 99 yards, touchdown) going down with an injury just before halftime, that meant a lot of the load fell on Liam Corman in the second half. All the sophomore did was rush for 85 of his 138 yards after halftime.

And on each of the Sabers' final drives, the Owls forced a turnover, getting interceptions from Matt Fitzgerald and Cam Nazarian, the second of which ended the game.

"Staying patient with the run game, which we did coming out to start the second half," Kevin Fitzgerald said. "There was no panic. They’re a dangerous team offensively, but our defense, particularly in the second half, was very good. We had guys scrambling all over and people in and out, so I thought our guys did an excellent job."

A big reason for Timberlane's success was that it held Souhegan's rushing attack in check for most of the night. The Sabers ran for just 74 yards on 19 carries, with JJ Bright getting 57 of those yards on the ground.

"I think it was our inability to run the football consistently and they just wore us out up front," Souhegan coach Robin Bowkett said. "We knew going in this was going to be all the way down to the fourth quarter. That’s how it worked. We had a couple of opportunities we’re going to wish we had back."

Souhegan had a first-and-goal at the Timberlane 8-yard line on its third possession, already up 14-7 at that point, but the Sabers ended up losing yardage before turning it over on downs.

Late in the third quarter, a promising drive ended at midfield when a bad snap on third-and-1 forced Souhegan to punt.

Despite that, the Sabers were in the spot they wanted - with the ball, with time remaining, to try to come back.

"We were still fine," Bowkett said. "We kept all three timeouts and it was three minutes left. We were doing some things defensively to try to get a stop. Our guys did a great job and helped get us the ball back. I had a decent feeling we were going to get the ball back and we did. We had the chance.

"Our guys were like ‘let’s go win this thing.’ We were ready to go. Kudos to (Nazarian), he made a heck of a football play."