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Coke's career day vaults Andover

Friday, September, 24 By David Willis
Staff writer

ANDOVER — With the pure fire in which he jumped into the air and pumped his fist after making the first tackle of the game, it was clear that Andy Coke was primed for a breakout performance.

“As soon as I scored my first touchdown we were pumped,” said Coke. “Then, on my second touchdown I realized we had it going. I have been dreaming about a game like this for a long time.”

Coke finished the day with five touchdowns rushing and threw for another score in his breakout performance, and Jimmy Walsh clinched the victory with an interception 1:13 left to give Andover a 39-32 victory over Tewksbury last night.

“Coke was unbelievable,” said senior quad-captain Ned Deane. “This is the best game I have ever seen him play. He was finding the holes, even if they were tiny, and getting the tough yards. He was running down hill and was just doing it all.”

The junior transfer from Brooks erupted for a whopping 222 yards on 29 carries — an average of 7.7 yards a rush. He notched 156 yards and four touchdowns on 15 carries in the first half alone. He had combined for 190 yards in the first two games of the season.

Coke did much of his damage out of the tailback position in the “jumbo” power-I formation Andover debuted this week after working exclusively out of the shotgun in the first two weeks. He also played approximately a quarter of the Golden Warriors’ plays at quarterback, scrambling for his first score of the day.

“After last week’s loss the coaches said we were going to run the ball more,” said Coke. “We decided to put in the power-I this week mostly for the red zone, and it worked great. I originally tried out for quarterback, but they decided I’d be better off at running back. Then they tried me running and QB and it started to work so well.”

Coke wasn’t done there. He also completed both of his passes as a quarterback, including a 10-yard touchdown pass to Brian Miller. Coke also added four tackles, knocked down a pass and returned a kickoff 47 yards to set up his last score of the day.

The game, however, was still in question in the final moments, as the Redmen had the ball at their 29-yard line with 1:21 left.

But as Tewksbury QB Sean Connolly (20 for 35, 331 yards) attempted to squeeze the ball into a receiver, Ben Cook knocked it into the air and Walsh dove over the lunging receiver to clinch the game with an interception.

“We were a little nervous,” said Deane. “But Jimmy made the play when it counted. He is the leader of our defensive backs even though he’s just a junior. He was an unsung hero in the Tribune this week, but I don’t know if he’s unnoticed now.”

The Golden Warriors host Haverhill next Friday in a game that was moved to Andover.

“It was huge that we established Coke early and jumped out to the 26-0 lead,” said Andover coach E.J. Perry. “We added the jumbo package so we could have Miller and Deane blocking on the same play. It was big to get an MVC win against a team that was looking good.”