Amherst advances to Newman Conference final with 20-10 win over Holy Names
Bulldogs score 11 unanswered points in fourth quarter
Posted By Ron Giofu/The Amherstburg Echo
Updated 16 days ago
AMHERSTBURG -- The General Amherst Bulldogs have earned a berth in the Newman Conference finals after a 20-10 win over the Holy Names Knights in last Thursday night's semi-final played at the University of Windsor's Alumni Field.
The Bulldogs struck first on a 28-yard touchdown pass from Dean DiPaolo to Evan Pszczonak in the first quarter but the Knights tied it a short time later. Holy Names seemed to take some of the momentum in the second quarter, including some special teams difficulties, but Amherst held them off the scoreboard.
The game remained a 7-7 deadlock until the third quarter when Holy Names chose to concede a safety after being stalled on a drive inside their own five-yard line. An 18-yard field goal put the Knights up 10-9 heading for the fourth quarter.
Matt Duby hit a 25-yard field goal to put Amherst up 12-10 then a Dakota Stewart interception return for a touchdown drove the dagger in the hearts of the Knights.
"It got in my head that I was going to go all the way," said Stewart. "No one was going to stop me."
A single point off of a missed field goal rounded out the scoring.
Fourth quarter interceptions by Pszczonak and Quinton Elliott cut short any late game heroics by the Knights.
Holy Names had defeated General Amherst 18-15 during the regular season.
Stewart said the win over Holy Names was "huge" but quickly noted they have a big game this week as well. The team made adjustments on both sides of the ball and watched a lot of game film to get ready for the Knights, he added.
Head coach Jim MacDougall said early in the game, particularly in the second quarter, the Bulldogs weren't getting many breaks.
"We got a whole bunch of bad breaks in the second quarter. It's a testament again to these kids that they battled through it. There was a real even keel on the sidelines. They didn't panic," said MacDougall. "We were only down for a small portion of the game. Then we came back and answered again. It's a team effort. We played really well in all three phases. We had some mistakes in the kicking game in the second quarter. Those were bounces that didn't go our way. You've just got to play through that and I think we did a good job of doing that."
MacDougall said they had a drive with several ten-plus yard runs in succession helped break the game open.
"The philosophy going in was we needed to be body punchers. Our dividends may not be paid in the first half but later in the game when they tackle (fullback/linebacker) Nate (O'Halloran) 18 times, it pays dividends in the fourth quarter. We were making some hay in the second half with that."
MacDougall said while it's nice to beat Holy Names, regardless of who it was didn't matter to him. He said he wants another shot at Herman, who beat them in an 8-7 heartbreaker in last year's Newman Conference final and 26-0 earlier this season.
"We had some personnel changes over course of the year and I think this is our best defensive personnel group that we have right now. I have full faith in them. Defensively, we played well. Other than one drive, we played very well defensively."
The Newman Conference championship game is tonight back at Alumni Field, Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
