Spartans drop finale to Taconic

PITTSFIELD – The Spartan’s football season has taken their share of lumps during the 2012 season. Coming off a one-win season in 2011, the Spartans started the year losing their first three games of 2012.

Then came the loss of their star running back, Malik Wilbon.

Last Saturday, Monument took another setback, which may have hurt the most. With the Spartans up 14-6, the Taconic Braves drove 95 yards in just over two minutes, culminating in a 17-yard touchdown pass from Jordan Barbarotta to receiver Drew Scace with 17 seconds left, to tie the game and send it into overtime.

It got worse for the Spartans.

In what was the most difficult scenario of the season, Taconic, on their first possession of overtime, garnered a fortuitous face-mask penalty on what would have been a third down and goal from the 12-yard line. Instead the Braves had a first and goal from the five.

Two plays later, the Braves punched in the winning score on Tony Marino’s two-yard touchdown run, causing an uproar on the Spartan sideline as Coach Tinker was beside himself, yelling at the officials to the point where he earned not one but two unsportsmanlike penalties.

The penalties pushed the Spartans back to a first and goal from the 40-yard line on their first overtime possession.

Four plays later, Monument’s season was over.

“It’s time for this league to look at the officiating, it’s as inconsistent as inconsistent can be,” Coach Tinker said afterwards. “To throw spiteful flags to upset me more – I know I am not suppose to talk to the paper about the officiating but it’s time – and other coaches agree – it’s time the league takes a hard look at itself in terms of the officiating.”

With the 22-14 loss to Taconic, the Spartans finished the season 2-8, improving on last year’s record and showing some signs of life with the emergence of junior quarterback Ryle O’Brien who threw for nearly 1,000 yards on the year.

“These kids fought through a lot of adversity, we became dependent on a great athlete and when he went down it was a matter of seeing what kind of grit these kids were made of,” Tinker said.

Tinker’s team, who easily beat rival Lee two weeks ago, 44-17, developed a stellar offense with an aerial attack on the arm of O’Brien and a potent running back by committee of seniors Matt Moriarty, Jesse Dupont and Brandon Curtin.

“They obviously responded,” said Tinker of his team. “This is a different team then they were at the start of the year and obviously we are going in the right direction.”

While Tinker loses his starting backfield next year, he will have nine juniors and 14 sophomores returning to try to get his program on the winning side.

“It’s going nowhere but up from here, with losing only four contributing seniors,” Tinker said.

Still the loss leaves Tinker with a bad taste in his mouth, knowing with two minutes left in the season and holding onto an eight-point lead, the Spartans couldn’t pick up the victory, as the officials made a questionable call in overtime.

“When you make a call in overtime that has no bearing on the play – to give them an automatic first down – that is ridiculous,” Tinker said. “It’s frustrating – two penalties for 30 yards – you are taking [the game] out of the kids’ hands, and that’s what upsets me the most.”

Posted by Tim Davis on November 15, 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