BELCHERTOWN — The Belchertown football team was laser focused ahead of Friday night’s bout with Easthampton.
The Orioles had plenty to be motivated by, as they still had a sour taste in their mouth from a loss against Hoosac Valley two weeks ago, and because the Eagles dominated them last season.
Oh, and it was Belchertown’s senior night.
Belchertown used a potent rushing attack led by Chris Daskam (225 yards, four touchdowns) and a stellar performance from its defense to cruise past Easthampton 41-14, on its home field under the lights.
The taste of revenge was as sweet as senior Josh Grillo had hoped it would be.
“It was electric out there,” Grillo said. “We came into this game knowing it was important. Especially on senior night. After having lost to Easthampton the last two years, we were coming for revenge. It was just satisfying to see this.”
While Daskam — who reached 1,000 yards on the season Friday — certainly deserves the praise for his tremendous night, senior wing backs Grillo (138 total yards, two touchdowns) and Nico St. George (45 total yards) also had strong games for the Orioles. Belchertown coach Dan McCarthy made a conscious effort to get his other seniors involved offensively.
“Complete and total team effort,” McCarthy said of the win. “I know Daskam gets so much of the glory — and he deserves it — but I wanted to showcase Nico and Josh tonight as well, and they were great when they got the ball. Teams are so focused on Chris Daskam that they don’t realize how talented those two wing backs are. They rolled out and did their thing.”
The playmakers on the outside will receive all the credit to the untrained football eye, but McCarthy knows his unit up front is the key to Belchertown’s run game. Throughout the entire season the offensive line has been an enforcer, and Friday was no different.
“The o-line man, each week those boys are getting better and better and better,” McCarthy said. “It starts with them. That o-line, those wing backs blocking, they were just beating kids up tonight with physicality.”
Grillo officially put the game out of reach midway through the third quarter. He took an outside handoff and ran right before picking up a key block that found him daylight down the sideline.
“I came out to the outside, Chris laid a great block, and I cut it up field,” Grillo said. “I was able to break a tackle, and then I was just gone – sprinting. There was one kid behind me, then next thing you know I was in the end zone. It felt great.”
In that third quarter, however, Easthampton ran 23 plays and had the ball for 10 minutes and 34 seconds. Belchertown only ran three plays for one minute and 26 seconds.
The issue for the Eagles: turnovers. Easthampton drove into Orioles territory seven times, including twice in that third quarter, but came away empty on five of those trips.
The Eagles coughed up the ball a total of six times on Friday, four via interception, and two via fumble. They took an 8-7 lead into the second quarter thanks to a 14-play drive capped off by a Tommy O’Connor touchdown, but that’s when the turnover bug got them. Belchertown outscored Easthampton 19-0 in the second frame and never looked back.
“It was a complete mental breakdown,” Eagles head coach Kyle Dragon said. “It just got in all the kids’ heads. When you have that many turnovers, you start playing less free and it becomes a mental battle. It’s not just the turnovers, though. Defensively we were not tackling. Give credit to Daskam, he’s a great running back, but we just weren’t tackling tonight.”
With how Easthampton came out in the opening quarter, it looked as if the Eagles were going to get anything they wanted offensively. They racked up 106 total yards in the first quarter alone, but the offense stalled from there. Dragon said he knew the Orioles would come out swinging on senior night, so he urged his team to be the aggressor early on – which they did. However, they had trouble sustaining it.
“We talked before the game – intensity, we have to have intensity,” Dragon said. “That’s what we wanted this whole game, to start the game with intensity and end it with intensity. I was happy the way we moved that ball down the field that first drive, but we couldn’t keep that intensity we started with.”
Topher Reardon added a touchdown in the third quarter for Easthampton and finished with 76 total yards. O’Connor racked up 78 total yards to go along with his aforementioned touchdown.
Orioles quarterback Landon Andre did a little bit of everything, as the senior threw for 65 yards and tossed a second-quarter touchdown to Grillo. Andre also added two interceptions on defense. Ryan Queiros and Brian Fuller each added picks for the defense – a unit that swarmed to the ball seemingly every play – as well.
“My man Keith Lebeau is a defensive genius,” McCarthy said. “He knows what he wants, he executes it in practice, and we deploy a game day defense. We got pounded in that double wing against Hoosac, and our boys came out and stopped it.”
Easthampton (4-2) suffered its first loss since its first game of the season. The biggest thing for the Eagles now is not letting Belchertown beat them twice by letting this Friday affect next Friday, and Dragon said he is well aware of that. Easthampton hosts Hoosac Valley in Week 7 at 7 p.m.
“We’re resilient, so we gotta be resilient,” Dragon said. “We gotta move on, we gotta have that short-term memory. Focus on the next game and fix the mental and physical errors we made tonight.”
Belchertown (4-1) relies heavily on its senior class, and it showed against the Eagles. McCarthy started his gig with the Orioles a few years back when the members of this class were just babies compared to where they’re at now. The impact the eight seniors have had on the Belchertown program doesn’t go unnoticed.
“They’re huge, and those are my guys,” McCarthy said. “That freshman and sophomore class, when I came in, I told them that we’re building this program to a point where we can compete year in and year out – and they’re proving that. It’s just dedication and hard work from that senior class. Nothing but love and respect for them.”
The Orioles hit the road for a 5:30 p.m. contest with Commerce next Friday.
