GREAT BARRINGTON — The Monument Mountain football team put up one heck of a fight against Belchertown on Friday night. Unfortunately for the Spartans, the fight wasn’t quite enough in a 14-6 loss on the fog-covered field at Monument Mountain Regional High School.
With the rain earlier in the day giving way to a thick, hanging fog on the field, neither team did much through the air. Instead, the game came down to a battle in the trenches and the Orioles had just enough juice to push past the Spartans.
Belchertown fullback Cameron Cass proved to be the biggest thorn in Monument’s side, gashing the Spartans for 202 yards on 26 carries and both of his team’s touchdowns.
“We talked a lot about (Cass) this last week during practice,” Monument coach Chris D’Aniello said. “It came down to making a play. Obviously, the kid killed us. We had people in position, it just came down to making a play and taking advantage of our opportunities. We just missed out on some opportunities tonight.”
Cass put the O’s up in the first half, then after a Tyrell Beverly scamper tied the game at 6-6 in the fourth, Cass carried the ball on 10 of his team’s next 12 plays to lead a 60-yard, go-ahead touchdown drive capped on a 1-yard rush.
“We always talk with the mindset ‘it’s what we do and not what we did or what just happened to us,’” Belchertown coach Chris Bourget said. “We’ve been preaching that since the very first day. You know football games are going to have a lot of momentum swings, and you have to ride those momentum swings sometimes.
“But, when they’re against you, you have to buckle your chin straps up, you have to know it’s all about what you do on the next play.”
After Cass’ second score put Belchertown up 14-6, the Spartans (1-6, 1-3 Intercounty South) had 1 minute, 26 seconds to mount a comeback drive. Starting at its own 15, Monument used five running plays to get the ball to the Belchertown 48-yard line. But with time winding down, a bubble screen to Beverly from quarterback Caleb Carlson failed to gain any yards, and two more short rushing plays killed the clock and allowed the Orioles (3-3, 2-1) to escape with the win.
The two fourth-quarter scores breathed some life into a game that had gotten pretty ugly in the trenches. With neither team airing the ball out much — Monument through its game design, Belchertown through missing some open passes down the field in the first half — the first half proved to be a slog.
“We knew they were stacking the box with 11 (guys). We had some guys open. We had a balanced game plan coming in, but in conditions like this you have to make changes to put your kids in the best position they can to be successful,” Bourget said. “We tried to take a few shots, we didn’t execute those plays, but I thought that kind of gave us some balance a little bit. It changed our game plan a little bit, absolutely.”