Lee football can’t catch up to Monument Mountain

GREAT BARRINGTON – The Wildcats had hoped to come out against the Spartans last Saturday afternoon, showcasing their no-holds barred passing attack. Instead, it was the Spartans’ quarterback, Ryle O’Brien, who lit up the scoreboard in his team’s 44-17 rout.

“[O’Brien] did a fantastic job,” said Spartan Head Coach Todd Tinker. “I told Ryle – a big performance you may be on top [of the county’s best quarterbacks stat sheet].”

O’Brien threw for over 200 yards and added four touchdown passes, with three of them covering more than 38 yards. He moved into the county’s top five passers, with a total of 772 yards on the season.

Lee scored on its opening drive, a broken play where quarterback Deaglan Giraolo ran for 16 yards up the middle.

The Spartans could not be stopped in the second quarter ,as O’Brien hit Peter Oggiani for 57 yards for their first score and Hez Adams from 38 yards out for another before finishing off the first half with another 38-yard touchdown pass to Oggiani, putting the Spartans up 24-17 at intermission.

“It was the guys’ senior game and they didn’t want it to be their last game,” Tinker said. “They played hard – those seniors played inspired football.”

Senior Aaron Martin may have been Tinker’s biggest surprise on senior day in Great Barrington, as the lightning-quick cornerback was given the start at linebacker as a reward for all his hard work on the season.

The dividends paid off for Tinker as Martin recovered a fumble and made the play of the game in the third quarter with a sack on fourth down.

“That’s the turning point of the game,” said Lee Head Coach Keith Thomson of Martin’s sack on a fourth-and–two with the Wildcats driving to tie the game.

“We had a pass play called that we really liked after the timeout – we just didn’t get the protection,” Thomson said.

With the Wildcats unable to stop the Spartans on any of the second quarter possessions, Thomson’s team survived with a Ryan Hurley 83-yard kickoff return and a Joe Winston field goal to make it a one-possession game at the start of the third.

Lee came out and got a key stop and drove down to the Spartans’ 14-yard line before Martin’s sack turned the game around.

On the next Spartan possession, Matt Moriarty took the end around hand-off and went 76 yards down the sideline for the 30-17 lead.

The Spartans added two more scores to make it a blowout – giving Monument a chance to continue their season with a plus-one game against Taconic this Saturday in Pittsfield.

For Lee, their season ends without a county win, mainly due to last year’s graduating class of 18 seniors and a rash of injuries which may have never been seen before on the high school level.

Despite the setbacks, Coach Thomson makes no excuses and feels as if his team left a lot on the field this year that could have gone better.

“Big plays – have been our problem all year,” Thomson said. “Poor tackling at times – give those guys credit, those [Spartans] came to play tonight.”

Posted by Tim Davis on November 8, 2012. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry