EASTHAMPTON — The Easthampton football team started strong and never looked back in its 20-6 win over Ware, Friday Night.

The scoring opened up when Eagles quarterback Nick Pellegrini found Damien Diluzio open on a drag route across the middle of the field, and Diluzio was able to run it in for a touchdown.

“We knew that this was a tough team and if we continued to make mistakes we were going to be in trouble,” Easthampton coach Matt Bean said. “We did a good job this week of keeping that to a minimum, and just playing hard and staying focused.”

The game was a one-sided defensive battle. While Easthampton didn’t give up any points until the fourth quarter, the Eagles’ offense was flowing all night. They moved the ball down the field with relative ease, which resulted in a big improvement from last week where they struggled to get the offense going.

“I’m feeling good, not great though,” Pellegrini said. “There are definitely some things we need to work on. We came together and did what we needed to do.”

Just before the Indians scored in the fourth quarter, Ware’s Johnny Velazquez was injured after being tackled on a play. An ambulance came on the field, Velazquez was removed on a stretcher and play resumed. However, when the ambulance was leaving it got stuck in a wet patch of grass near the field.

As it struggled to get out of the mud, some spectators walked over to help push it out. When Velazquez’s teammates from the bench noticed that the ambulance was stuck, they ran over to push it out. Immediately after that Easthampton’s bench players ran over to help. Then, play was stopped as players from both teams on the field helped.

“We all noticed that it got stuck over there,” Pellegrini said. “We saw (Ware) running over and we were like, ‘alright let’s do this’ and so we all ended up pushing it out. … To me that was the most important part of the game tonight.”

Easthampton 20, Ware 6

Ware

0

0

0

6

—6

Frontier Regional

6

6

8

0

—20

First quarter

E—Nick Pellegrini 23-yard pass to Damien Diluzio (2-point failed), 1:42

Second quarter

E—Jacob Newman 26 run (2-point failed), 3:42

Third quarter

E—Nick Pellegrini 3 pass to Ben Landry (Pellegrini 2-point), 8:00

Fourth quarter

W—Devin Slattery 57 run (2-point failed), 6:03

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—Easthampton: Jacob Neumann 9-113, Nick Pellegrini 8-41, Damien Diluzio 4-19, Fred Murray 2-14, Ben Landry 1-15, Ware: Slattery 8-84, Roberto Vera 7-35, Velazquez 1-4

PASSING—Easthampton: Pellegrini 7-13-103-2, Ware: Devin Slattery 7-17-74, Keith Smith 1-1-33

RECEIVING—Easthampton: Ben Landry 3-40-1, Quintin Baker-Cisero 3-37, Damien Diluzio 1-26-1 Ware: Devin Slattery 1-33, Keith Smith 3-22, Robert Viera 2-15, Johnny Velazquez 2-8