BYFIELD — It’s bad enough to lose one game against an archrival in overtime.
But two in back-to-back weeks? Now that’s just unacceptable.
For senior Ipswich natives Sawyer Gromko, Cullen Courville, Jake Stevens, Kirby Domingo and Ryan Sexton, all they wanted was to leave high school with at least one victory over former Thanksgiving rival Hamilton-Wenham. The group had unfortunately been on the receiving end of some Turkey Day beatdowns over the past few years, along with a 22-20 crusher at Jack Welch Stadium to end the 2024 season.
So if they could get one — just one — victory over the Generals before exiting stage left, that would be enough.
Now, they didn’t expect it to come at The Marsh while wearing Viking blue.
But hey … they’ll take it!
On a beautiful Friday night in Byfield, Triton locked it down defensively to earn the 21-0 shutout victory over Hamilton-Wenham. It was a cathartic moment for the dozen Ipswich athletes on the Vikings’ roster, as the two CAL schools continue to navigate Year 1 of a two-year co-op agreement together. And after the team let the “Border Battle” slip away in OT against the Vikings’ archrival, Newburyport, last week, there was just no way that anybody on that roster was accepting going 0-for-2 in archrivaly games this year.
So they didn’t.
“It felt great to shut them out,” said Gromko, who contributed a sack and a handful of tackles defensively. “The Ipswich kids took the Newburyport game pretty seriously, so I think that the Triton kids took our rivalry pretty seriously.
“It was just a great night.”
And it speaks to the resiliency of this group.
We’re not going to go back through every detail, but Triton (2-2) had every chance in the world to beat Newburyport last week. The Vikings put so much emotional and physical energy into that game, lost it in heartbreaking fashion, then had to somehow regroup for a moment that’s just as important to their “new brothers” the very next week.
A lot of teams wouldn’t have been able to find a spark after that.
But not the Vikings.
“It flipped immediately to, ‘okay, onto the next week,'” said Triton coach Ed Melanson. “Whatever happened, happened against Newburyport, and now it’s time for Hamilton-Wenham. So it was big for (the Triton kids), especially when they found out that the Ipswich kids had never beaten Hamilton-Wenham before. So it was the last shot for those seniors, and the Triton kids wanted to get it for them.”
And that renewed energy showed immediately.
Behind the blocking of Michael Haidaczuk, Domingo, Micah Hanchett, Jordan Ortiz, Stevens and Sexton on the offensive line, Triton sustained a long opening drive that eventually stalled and resulted in a missed long field goal. But after a quick stop on defense, it took just one play for the Vikings to find the game’s first points.
And of course it was courtesy of an Ipswich kid!
Gromko took the counter handoff, and pretty much went untouched 58 yards to the endzone to make it 7-0 following a PAT from Oran MacDonald.
“It was just a counter play, and the hole opened up and I just hit it and was gone,” said Gromko. “That was awesome.”
Which turned out to be all of the points Triton would need.
A wild statement to actually come true, as Hamilton-Wenham (3-1) came into the game undefeated and averaging 31.7 points offensively. But even though the Vikings bent a little bit and gave up some yardage (final count was only a 280-243 yard advantage for the Vikings), they never broke and allowed points. All three levels got the job done, starting with Luke Linehan, Ortiz, Domingo and Carter Whitney on the line. The trio of Royce Whitney, Ben Woodfin and Sexton were flying around at linebacker, and Ben Imlach, Gromko, Sam Harding and Colin Roberge started in the secondary with Courville and Jeremiah Price rotating in.
It was a 7-0 game at halftime, and the scoreboard wouldn’t change until the fourth quarter.
“We knew that (Hamilton-Wenham) was going to be really good,” said Melanson. “I mean, they’ve been scoring points like crazy. So we knew they weren’t going to lay down and let us do what we wanted. But I’m proud of our kids. We came up and we hit tonight. I was just glad to see that after last week, we bounced back and had a good effort.”
Poetically, the Ipswich kids got the lead.
Then it was the Triton kids bringing it home.
After both sides kept trading possessions, early in the fourth quarter it was the junior QB Harding keeping it himself for an electric 49-yard scoring run to paydirt. Roberge then came away with an acrobatic interception, and a long ensuing drive ended with a 1-yard TD plunge by Royce Whitney to make it a 21-0 game with seven minutes left. Whitney — a sophomore and the team’s workhorse back this year — finished with 127 yards on 15 carries, while Harding added 60 yards on eight totes himself.
“This game was so important,” said Harding, a junior captain. “I mean, we lost last week to Newburyport, and this rivalry for Ipswich is just like ours with Newburyport. So it was big for them, and we wanted to get it done.”
Then just for good measure, Domingo took out year’s worth of frustration with a sack, and Woodfin iced the game in the closing seconds with an interception of his own. It was the second shutout of the year for Triton, which will travel to North Reading next week.
“We just took all of our anger out on Hamilton-Wenham,” said Harding. “We really wanted that Newburyport win, but we just put it all out there today.”
Triton 21, Hamilton-Wenham 0
Hamilton-Wenham (3-1): 0 0 0 0 — 0
Triton (2-2): 7 0 0 14 — 21
First Quarter
T — Sawyer Gromko 58 run (Oran MacDonald kick), 4:43
Fourth Quarter
T — Sam Harding 49 run (MacDonald kick), 10:15
T — Royce Whitney 1 run (MacDonald kick), 6:35
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
RUSHING: TRITON (32-259): Royce Whitney 15-127, Sam Harding 8-60, Sawyer Gromko 4-51, Ben Woodin 3-18, Cullen Courville 1-4, Jaden Price 1-(-1); HAMILTON-WENHAM (31-116): Andrew Wilbur 19-89, Anthony Folger 9-14, Finn Creilson 3-13
PASSING: T — Harding 1-4-0-0, 21; HW — Folger 9-21-0-2, 127
RECEIVING: T — Jeremiah Price 1-21; HW — Jakob Collins 3-59, Wilbur 2-33, Zach Sachsel 2-15, Ben Kirkman 1-12, William Hermsen 1-8