AMHERST — The Amherst Regional football team had itself quite a Friday night, running up a 51-0 win over Ludlow to stay undefeated.
The Hurricanes (3-0) did the majority of their work in the first half, scoring 37 points. Their offense scored on six of the team’s eight possessions and scored a touchdown on a kick return to open the second half.
The defense had a counter for everything that the Lions (1-3) did, forcing a four-and-out on each of Ludlow’s seven possessions.
“We all came to play,” senior Antonio Govan Jr. said. “We prepared, nice week of practice. We just came to play, made blocks, made plays and the scoreboard says it all.”
The game started off in favor of the Hurricanes as they recovered their own onside kick. From there, senior JJ Block ran it 60 yards for the touchdown to make it 6-0.
Amherst took advantage of a Ludlow botched snap on the Lions’ second possession. On the first play from the Ludlow 10-yard line, J.B. Mills connected with Shane Robles for the score. They converted the two-point attempt to make it 13-0 with 7:18 remaining in the first quarter.
Ludlow had a long third series but failed to score on fourth-and-3 from the 4-yard line. After a couple of runs move the chains for Amherst, Dan Block ran the ball 54 yards to the 20-yard line. Mills connected with Robles again for the touchdown with 8:30 left in the second quarter.
After a strong defensive stand, Amherst received the ball at the opposing 35-yard line. After a Dan Block 9-yard run, Ethan Howard ran it 21 yards for the touchdown. The Hurricanes converted the two-point attempt to make it 30-0 with 5:30 remaining in the first half.
On the last possession of the half, Amherst received the ball at its 4-yard line. On the first play, Govan ran it 96 yards for the touchdown. Govan had two rushes for 102 yards and a touchdown in the game. Amherst made the extra point to bring the score to 37-0 at the half.
“I just saw the outside and then I had my guard in front of me so I just pushed him to the sideline to take it inside,” Govan said about his long run. “And then, my boy right here (Robles) had the block of the game and I just took it to the end zone.”
In the second half, Amherst received the kickoff and sophomore Zayd Sadiq, who was celebrating his birthday, ran 90 yards for the touchdown. The extra point attempt was good and Amherst led 44-0 just 25 seconds into the third quarter.
On the final scoring drive of the game, CJ Woodfine-Holmes ran 35 yards to the end zone. The extra point attempt was good to cap the scoring.
The Hurricanes received a strong performance from their special teams unit. Robles made three extra-point attempts, Sadiq ran a kickoff back for a touchdown, the opening onsides kick was recovered and they always had good field position on punt returns.
“Our special teams period, we run it just as hard as any other period,” Amherst coach Chris Ehorn Jr. said. “They have a time clock so if they’re running down the field, they have 15 seconds to get back and lined up so we can kick again. During practice, it’s a really fast-paced segment of practice and it’s shown on the field, which is great. I also want to note that those were the very first field goals we’ve kicked in four years. We don’t kick field goals. But Shane has a great leg so we thought it was appropriate for us to kick extra points instead of going for two.”
Last week, the Hurricanes avenged a 2018 loss to East Longmeadow. With this win, they avenge a 25-16 loss to Ludlow from last season.
“We have a state championship mindset right now,” Robles said. “We’re trying to go for that big one. It’s one step at a time, try to beat all of these teams we lost to.”
There was a special moment at halftime when the 1999 Amherst team, the last to win a championship, was celebrated. Among the members was Larry Briggs, a coach on the ’99 team who was also a part of the 1959 team that went undefeated. Briggs also gave a pep talk to the team prior to the game.
“He loves Amherst and Amherst means a lot to him,” Ehorn said.