Wakeup call helped refocus Pinkerton football team in chase for D1 title

The Pinkerton Academy football team looked like it was cruising to a regular-season finale with Winnacunnet that would possibly determine the No. 1 seed in the South/East Cluster.

But a week before that game, the Astros were stunned by Windham in the final game on their home field, and suddenly, a game they thought would be to settle seeding was now a fight for a playoff spot.

"When we lost to Windham, that was such a shock that I didn’t even consider the mathematical options," Pinkerton coach Brian O'Reilly said. "The options were we’re not going to the playoffs if we don’t beat the team that beat us last year in the championship game.

"Not making any excuses, but we didn’t play to our capability. I don’t know if the kids were looking ahead and thinking that we’ve got Winnacunnet (in the finale). We talked all week about don’t you dare look to that game."

In the three games since that loss, O'Reilly has seen the team he expected Pinkerton to be all season. Now the Astros will try to win the program's 14th championship on Saturday, when they face Bedford at 6 p.m. in the Division I championship game at the University of New Hampshire.

"From that point on, that week of practice, they showed me the team that I expected to see," O'Reilly said. "When it was on the line, they came out and played, and they haven’t stopped since.

"When we’ve had good teams in the past, we’ve usually coasted through, played some tough games, but things remained more or less on the same level. This was different. It put us in a situation where we had to take this seriously, or we’re going home before Halloween."

O'Reilly points to the seniors as the ones who righted the ship. As sophomores, they were a part of the first Pinkerton team to miss the playoffs since 2002, and last season, they fell behind early and couldn't get back in the championship game against Winnacunnet.

"Do you want to go down as a team that should have been, but wasn’t?" O'Reilly said. "It was collectively that they understood. This isn’t what we do."

What Pinkerton did do was turn into a bunch of road warriors, starting with winning that finale at Winnacunnet. In the playoffs, the Astros became the first Division I team to win two road playoff games on their way to the title game, beating Londonderry and Salem on two muddy fields.

With its outside running game, plus the passing attack, held in check by the conditions, Pinkerton leaned on Gannon Fast to carry a lot of the load in the playoff wins, rushing for 259 yards and four touchdowns, to go with a special teams touchdown against Salem.

Now, with Saturday's game on the turf at UNH, the Astros will have their whole playbook available to them, but it will still come down to what it always does for Pinkerton.

"Some of it goes to what we hang our hat on here," O'Reilly season. "We are a running team and a defensive team. Because we’re a running team, the bad weather, the wind … we just run the ball."