DALTON — The new trophy case inside the new Wahconah Regional High School has its first trophy. Unfortunately for the Northampton Blue Devils, they had to give the trophy up for now.
Jonah Smith ran for 145 yards and three touchdowns and the Wahconah defense held Northampton without a first down in the first half, as the undefeated Warriors beat the Blue Devils 38-16 Friday night. Wahconah’s victory brought the Route 9 Rumble trophy back from the Pioneer Valley, where it had resided since 2019.
Much like 2019, turnovers had a big hand in the final score. The visiting Blue Devils had three first-half turnovers, two fumbles and an interception. Wahconah converted two of those turnovers into touchdowns that gave the undefeated Warriors (7-0) a 21-0 lead.
“Wahconah is a very, very good football team. We knew that coming in,” Northampton coach Joe Kocot said. “We didn’t fool ourselves about anything. You can’t play a great team and not execute — and we didn’t execute.”
The Blue Devils also had trouble containing Wahconah’s Smith. The senior running back carried the ball 20 times, and had only two runs for negative yardage. He had 66 yards at halftime.
The first costly turnover came on the game’s second play. Northampton quarterback Ben Sledzieski fumbled and Wahconah linebacker Ben Noyes fell on the ball at the Blue Devils 25-yard line. Smith got the ball on three carries, gaining four, three and then 18 yards through a huge hole for the first touchdown.
The second turnover came when Sledzieski was hit by defensive end Owen Alfonso, and the Warriors recovered on the Northampton 49. A holding penalty and three plays forced Wahconah to punt. Scott’s punt rolled out of bounds on the Northampton 14.
On the first play of the next drive, Sledzieski tried to find Mylek Norris out of the backfield. Alfonso came up huge, as the defensive end intercepted a pass. On the next play, Smith burst into the end zone from four yards out. Smith scored on the first two conversions, which made the score 16-0.
“I will tell you, Owen Alfonso’s interception on that screen, I’ve never seen it that quick before,” Wahconah coach Gary Campbell Jr. said. “He anticipated that, and they had been running that all the time. We did it well.”
Kocot said the Blue Devils got off to a rocky start in this one, and really never recovered.
“Before our first snap, we’re dropping the ball,” he said. “We made some uncharacteristic mistakes which were on alignment. We knew where they were attacking from, for the most part, and couldn’t block them.”
Two scores isn’t impossible to come back from, but the Blue Devils lost a good chance to get back in the game.
After the Wahconah defense forced a punt, Warriors receiver Owen Salvatore lost the football on an end around, giving Northampton the ball on its 32-yard line. Instead of getting a drive going, a fumbled pitch lost 14 yards and gave Wahconah the ball on the Hamp 19.
It took Wahconah eight plays spanning the first and second quarter to get in the end zone. This time quarterback Scott snuck in from a yard out and he also ran in the conversion, making it 24-0.
Just when it looked safe for the home team, Scott’s fourth-down punt from the Wahconah 9 was blocked and Northampton had the ball on the 3-yard line. On the next play from scrimmage, Norris got into the end zone, and a two-point pass made it 24-8.
Early in the game, Wahconah had been going ground-and-pound led by Smith. Scott, meanwhile had thrown only four passes through the first 22 minutes of the quarter. The senior saved his best for last.
Both teams traded punts and Wahconah got the ball on its 24-yard line with 2:53 left in the half. He completed a 11-yard pass to Alfonso and Salvatore was tackled at the line of scrimmage on a screen pass. Smith gained seven, setting up third and three from the 42. Scott lined up under center in what looked like a run. He took a few steps back and found Luke DiCicco running a post. DiCicco got behind the Northampton defense and went 58 yards for a back-breaking touchdown. That made it 32-8 at halftime, and that was way too big of a hole for the Blue Devils to dig out of.
Wahconah held Northampton to 14 yards of total offense in the first half and 163 for the game. The Warriors had 306 yards in total offense, 176 of those on the ground.
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Northampton 0 8 0 8 — 16
Wahconah 16 16 6 0 — 38
First Quarter
W — Jonah Smith 18 run (Smith run), 9:42.
W — Smith 4 run (Smith run), 7:05.
Second Quarter
W — Ryan Scott 1 run (Scott run), 11:56.
NH — Mykel Norris 3 run (Trevor Maslowski pass from Ben Sledzieski), 7:47.
W — Luke DiCicco 58 pass from Scott (Smith run), 1:41.
Third Quarter
W — Smith 36 run (Pass failed), 8:25.
Fourth Quarter
NH — Ryan Crowther 2 run (Trey Rios pass from Sledzieski), 4:25.
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N’hamp Wah
First Downs 6 11
Rushes-Yards 22-58 38-176
Passing yards 105 130
Comp-Att-Int 9-17-1 11-14-0
Punts-Avg. 4-31.8 2-35.0
Fumbles-Lost 2-2 2-2
Penalties-Yards 4-50 9-51
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INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — N’hamp: Ben Sledzieski 8-28, Mykel Norris 8-19, Tyrese Jordan Cox 2-3, Ryan Crowther 4-8. Wah: Jonah Smith 20-145, Scott Duma 2-(minus-2), Owen Salvatore 1-4, Ryan Scott 1-1, Doug Collins 7-37, Lucas Pickard 3-(minus-14), Noah Poirer 3-5.
PASSING — N’hamp: Sledzieski 9-17-1 105. Wah: Scott 10-12-0 117, Pickard 1-2-0 13.
RECEIVING —N’hamp: Trevor Maslowski 3-2, Trey Rios 1-10, Conor Tobin 2-47. Wah: Salvatore 5-20, Brad Noyes 1-4, Owen Alfonso 1-11, Luke DiCicco 1-58, Ben Noyes 1-5, Drew Wendling 1-18, Zander Walton 1-13.