Turnovers the difference as Manchester West football beats Merrimack

MANCHESTER – Jimmy Lauzon had a feeling his Manchester West High School football team might fall behind early in Saturday’s game against Merrimack.

The coach told his players that the night before the game, and if they did, Lauzon thought the Blue Knights might not respond well.

As it turned out, West did fall behind early, but that was the only part of Lauzon’s prediction that came true.

Merrimack recovered a short opening kickoff and turned it into an early touchdown, but West answered with scores on its first two drives and won the turnover battle to defeat the Tomahawks 31-13 on the Blue Knights’ homecoming weekend.

West forced four turnovers, turning two of them into touchdowns to improve to 3-2 on the season (2-2 in Division II), the latest the team has had a winning record in a long time.

“We haven’t had two wins in a row in about six years,” Lauzon said. “We haven’t been above .500 after Game 1 in about six years, so it’s a big win for the program.”

Zach Ziemba led the way for West, completing 12 of 18 passes for 218 yards and a touchdown, while rushing for two more scores. He also intercepted a pass on Merrimack’s first drive of the second half that set up a touchdown that put the Blue Knights up 21-7.

“You can’t just turn the ball over like we were,” Merrimack coach Joe Battista said. “If we don’t get it there (in West territory), we’re going to punt, maybe pin them deep and play field position. Unfortunately, we turned it over and tilted the field back toward them.”

The ’Hawks (0-4, 0-5) managed to stay in the game. After the interception to open the third, Ziemba found Zach Theriault for a 5-yard touchdown pass that put West up 14 points.

Merrimack answered right back, converting a third down before Devin Gillis connected with Dylan Beaulieau for a 15-yard gain. That set up a 48-yard touchdown run by Jordan Miranda, but the ’Hawks missed the extra point and West led 21-13.

The Blue Knights looked like they were going up by more when Ziemba ran into the end zone from 15 yards out, but the play was called back on a hold and West had to settle for a 42-yard field goal by Jared Camire that made it 24-13 with 2:02 left in the third.

Ziemba added a 10-yard touchdown run in with 1:53 left in the game to close out the scoring.

“I can’t say enough about the kid,” Lauzon said. “Last year, we had a great athlete (Aaron Martin) at quarterback. This year, (Ziemba) has been a leader and he’s running the team correctly. All of his hard work has paid off.”

Merrimack opened the game with a short kickoff that Beaulieu recovered, giving the ’Hawks the ball at West’s 33. Six plays later, Gillis hit Conor Whelan for an 8-yard touchdown pass to give Merrimack its first lead of the season.

“I wish I could say it was (designed), but (Andrew Stockhausen) just hit the ball too low and it kind of popped up,” Battista said. “Luckily none of their guys got on it and we were smart enough to jump on it. It was not planned. You could see it picked up the sideline. It’s the first time all year we’ve been in the lead and it picked the sideline up.”

Gillis finished the day with 126 yards passing, but was just 7 of 16 with two interceptions, two fumbles lost and the junior quarterback was sacked four times. Sean McCarthy had 63 yards rushing for Merrimack and Whelan caught four passes for 81 yards.

West outgained Merrimack 301-228, and also got a big day from Camire, who had 53 yards and a touchdown on the ground and caught four passes for 129 yards.

“They’re believing what I’m selling them, and hopefully we do that next week, too,” Lauzon said. “If we play the second half of the season like we did the first, we’ll be in the playoffs.”