NORTH READING — The last minute of Friday night’s Triton at North Reading football game was something the NFL scriptwriters couldn’t even come up with.
It truly had a bit of everything.
–A spiked pass that was nearly intercepted.
–A student running across the field near the end of a live play.
–A poor snap on a game-tying field goal that led to a goal-line hit stick at the buzzer.
Unfortunately for the Vikings, this script was out of a horror movie.
Triton was just four yards away from potentially earning its first win over North Reading since 2014, on the cusp of executing a beautiful 15-play, 76-yard drive that would have killed the last nine minutes of the game. Following back Jayden Torres getting the Vikings down to the 4-yard-line with a running clock, quarterback Braylon Lupa was able to spike the ball with three seconds left despite bobbling the snap (and the spike nearly getting intercepted). With no timeouts left, and emotions high after an epic drive, the Vikings decided to play for overtime with senior Liam Friis attempting a 20-yard field goal.
But the senior’s chip-shot never got off the ground.
The snap two-hopped it’s way back to holder Jason Holscher, who had to improvise with the operation out of its timing. Holscher rolled out to his right and sprinted for the endzone, but was stood up at the 5-yard-line by a massive hit that sent the ball flying out of his hands backwards. North Reading was first to jump on the fumble with all zeros on the clock, clinching a wild 13-10 victory that was an absolute heartbreaker for the Vikings to stomach.
“If I had one more timeout we were going for it, we would have gone for the win,” said Triton coach Paul Sobolewski. “It was just so crazy that I thought the best move for us was to try and get it to overtime.”
But that, unfortunately, was the story of the game for Triton (3-1).
Missed opportunities.
This was the Vikings’ best chance to break the decade-long losing streak to the Hornets (4-0), and for the majority of Friday’s game, it’s not wrong to say that they were the better team. Which is crazy to think about when you consider that this same game last year was 45-0 at halftime, and over the past three years, the Hornets have demolished the Vikings by a combined score of 140-15.
And Triton had it, too.
You could tell from the first drive of the game, when on a 4th-and-2 from the 28, Torres (23-109-1) bounced off a tackle and broke away for a touchdown. Then defensively, a line of Alex Sauris, Nolan Merrill, Anthony Navaroli and Govanni Rodriguez, along with linebackers Athan Eggleston and Everett Romano, kept North Reading to just two first downs over its opening two drives. The Hornets eventually broke through on a 31-yard touchdown pass from Jason Berry to Tanner DuPriest, but after the PAT was blocked, the Vikings drove down and got a 42-yard field goal from Friis with 14 seconds left to a take a 10-6 lead into halftime.
That, however, is when the mistakes started.
Triton forced a 3-and-out to open the second half, and a bad snap on the punt gave it the ball at the North Reading 11. Alright, time to go to work, right? Unfortunately no, as the Vikings couldn’t punch it in, and a 23-yard field goal attempt from Friis missed wide right. What could have been a two-score game at 17-6, or a full touchdown game at 13-6, remained at 10-6.
Missed opportunity No. 1.
“That was a big moment we couldn’t capitalize on,” said Sobolewski.
And North Reading promptly made them pay, going on a 13-play, 80-yard drive that ended with Berry finiding Gavin Brady on an 8-yard touchdown in the back-right corner of the endzone. That made it 13-10 near the end of the third quarter, but after each team traded punts, the Vikings took over at their own 24 with just under nine minutes left.
Now was time for one epic drive.
The Vikings kept it on the ground for all but one play, getting a pair of third-down conversions from Lupa, and a 10-yard gain from Torres on a 4th-and-1 from the Hornets’ 19. On two of those conversions, though, the Vikings had to call a timeout beforehand to set up a play. That left them with only one remaining, which unfortunately had to be blown when the Vikings only had 10 players on the field on their 1st-and-goal play from the 9.
Missed opportunity No. 2.
Triton gave Torres two carries down to the 4 with no timeouts and the clock running dangerously low, but were able to get the spike off in time. Had the Vikings had a timeout left, Sobolewski would have called it then to have more time to talk through a potential game-winning play. But since an unforced error negated that chance, the field goal unit rushed onto the field.
And what followed was choas, followed by heartbreak for the visitors.
Who now have gone a full decade getting stung by the Hornets.
“I mean, all I explained to the kids is that Triton hasn’t been in this position for a long time, as we all know,” said Soboloewski. “And you saw that in the crucial situations, we sort of lost our composure. You know, it’s a tough loss, but we’ve come so far in a year. We were down 45-0 to North Reading at halftime last year, and they returned their whole team. So to take them to the wire, last play of the game, what can you say?”
This one will take a while to get over, but Triton will need to in a hurry.
Up next, the Vikings will travel to undefeated Lynnfield next Friday for a 6:30 p.m. kickoff.
“I told them that’s what a playoff atmosphere is like, and if we keep playing like that, we’ll be a playoff team,” said Sobolewski. “We just have to learn to polish things up a little bit down the stretch. A lot of missed opportunites, and that’s what happens when a program is growing still. But I’m proud of our kids.
“We’re going to be a forced to be reckoned with the rest of the year.”
North Reading 13, Triton 10
Triton (3-1): 7 3 0 0 — 10
North Reading (4-0): 0 6 7 0 — 13
First Quarter
T — Jayden Torres 28 run (Liam Friis kick), 6:36
Second Quarter
NR — Tanner DuPriest 31 pass from Jason Berry (kick blocked), 7:03
T — Friis 42 field goal, :14
Third Quarter
NR — Gavin Brady 8 pass from Berry (Xander Villarroel kick), 1:27
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
RUSHING: TRITON (39-150): Jayden Torres 23-109, Braylon Lupa 6-20, Carl Lucy 9-18, Athan Eggleston 1-3; NORTH READING (18-57): Otto Indelicato 12-49, Tanner DuPriest 2-8, David Tran 2-4, Jason Berry 2-(-4)
PASSING: T — Lupa 7-12-0-0, 61; NR — Berry 18-24-2-0, 156
RECEIVING: T — Jason Holscher 2-29, Liam Friis 3-21, Charlie Mollineaux 1-6, Lucy 1-5; NR — DuPriest 7-75, Gavin Brady 5-50, Antonio Ricca 1-13, Indelicato 4-12, Lucas Do Val 1-6