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Dracut onslaught buries Andover

Saturday, October, 18 By David Willis
Staff writer

DRACUT — The frustrated defensive back fired the water cooler against the turf.

 He had plenty of reason to be angry.

The Golden Warriors had no answers for pass-happy MVC co-leader Dracut last night in a lopsided 55-25 loss.

Eagle-Tribune records go back through the 1984 season, and in those 25 years no Andover club had ever given up that many points. The next most was 46 to Tewksbury in 2002.

“Dracut is a very good team,” said Andover head coach Ken Maglio of the fourth-ranked team in Eastern Mass. “We hit a bump in the road today and need to regroup.”

The game looked as if it would get away from Golden Warriors early. The Middies scored 1:25 into the game, then added another touchdown just 2:44 later to take a 14-0 lead. But Andover struck quickly to make it a contest.

After a short punt, Tucker Devine carried once for 17 yards, and again for 18 yards and a touchdown.

Then, on the following kickoff, the Dracut returner touched the ball, then let it roll in the end zone.

Sophomore Ned Deane alertly scampered into the end zone and dove onto the ball for a touchdown to cut the lead to 14-12.

The Middies scored on the following possession, but the Andover defense finally woke up. On the next possession, Yogi Layne picked off a pass, and a drive later Mike Ardagna stripped the ball and Andrew Lebowitz recovered.

The Golden Warriors turned in a third stellar stop, with Deane sacking the QB on fourth down.

But on all three possessions, the Andover offense could not take advantage.

“We made some good plays,” said Maglio. “But you can’t play defense for 44 minutes. We were on defense an awful lot.”

In the third quarter, the Golden Warriors forced a turnover on downs and two punts. On the second punt, Erik Geffken broke through for a block and Kevin Baroni grabbed it in the end zone for a touchdown. But the Middies returned the following kickoff for a score.

Matt Grimard broke out in the fourth quarter, throwing three of his four touchdowns.

He ended up with 215 yards passing and now has a whopping 16 TD passes for the 5-1 Middies, who kept on throwing, even when the game was well in hand. The shortest Middies touchdown was from 19 yards, and five were of at least 30 yards.

“That kid is a good quarterback,” said Maglio. “We had the kids covered and he just made some pinpoint passes.”

Although Andover struggled, the Golden Warriors did have some noteworthy efforts.

Steven LaFortune was a bright spot, making a team-high 14 tackles.

Deane also had the best game of his career with seven tackles and the sack.