WEST ROXBURY, Mass. – Even though it’s been a nearly a decade, Stoughton senior lineman John Jolley vividly remembers the last time he found himself in the end zone scoring a touchdown.
He was just nine years old, playing Pop Warner.
Jolley isn’t likely to forget Stoughton’s 28-14 win on the road at Catholic Memorial anytime soon either.
On the last play of the first half, the 6’2, 220-pound defensive end was in the right place at the right time, coming up with an interception and returning it 72-yards for a pick six.
Not only was it a once in a lifetime play for a high school lineman, it was a play that completely changed the momentum, and possibly the outcome, of the game.
Stoughton’s defense held the Scarlet Knights to just 21 yards over the first three series of the game, but Catholic Memorial was in the midst of putting together its best drive of the half.
CM had rattled off eight plays, covering 61 yards to get into Stoughton territory with just five seconds to play. When the Scarlet Knights trotted out its kicking unit for a long field goal, Stoughton head coach Greg Burke used his first timeout of the half to ice the kicker.
With Stoughton up 7-0, first-year CM head coach Brent Williams elected to send his offense back out to try and tie the game on the final play.
Stoughton ended up getting pressure into the backfield and senior Jason Joseph made a huge play, hitting CM quarterback Nick Goffredo as he threw. The ball fluttered out of his hands and right to Jolley, who caught the ball and sprinted 72 yards for a touchdown.
“I saw someone come off the back side and hit the quarterback and the ball popped up and I just grabbed it and started running,” Jolley said. “I was looking back while running and saw my teammates so I knew I was going to score cause they’d throw good blocks.”
“Jolley was there, I don’t even know how far that run was,” said Stoughton head coach Greg Burke. “That’s pretty impressive for a big guy to get down there. It started with the sack and the ball popped up.”
And if you needed any more reassurance of just how big the play was, Stoughton was flagged on the play because its bench ran down the sideline in celebration of the big play.
And in a rare instance, Burke was fine was the penalty.
“That’s high school!” Burke beamed.
That interception was just one play in what was a very solid outing for the Black Knights’ defense. CM scored on its last two drives of the game, but its first five series ended in the following: fumble/turnover on downs, punt, punt, pick six and turnover on downs.
“It was pretty steamy out there, first half I thought we did real well on their run game,” Burke said. “They’re a big tough team, they probably didn’t think much of us. Their quarterback was our top priority, especially on scrambling. The end was a little hairy but we’ve got some tough kids. I was really happy, I thought we did pretty well when they came at us.
“This was a good 20-25% better than last week. We had a couple penalties, maybe. And we filled up some holes better inside. We got lit up a little bit inside and today [CM] didn’t get much inside.”
Stoughton’s offense also had a strong day, with four of its six drives resulting in double-digit plays run. Another was cut short by an interception, and its final drive of eight plays ended with the final seconds ticking off the block.
“That was it for us,” Burke said of the long drives. “If we can do that [consistently], we’re going to win a lot of games. We have to be able to run the ball but defenses have to be able to cover both. We can run our offense out of both sets. We can run pass plays or run plays from both sets so that helps us.”
The Black Knights were set to receive the opening kickoff but CM’s Will Fay blasted his kick off a Stoughton player and recovered the kick to give the Scarlet Knights the first possession. But on a fourth down in Stoughton territory, Alex Sjoquist came up with a strip sack with the ball bouncing out of bounds to give the Black Knights the ball.
Stoughton used a 12-play, 64-yard drive to take the lead. Highlighted by first-down runs of 10-yards and 12-yards by Justin Ly (16 carries, 77 yards), the Black Knights went up 7-0 on an eight-yard scamper by Alex Iverson on a counter play with just 14 seconds left in the first quarter.
The game stayed scoreless until Jolley’s pick six right before halftime. The bench penalty forced Stoughton back on the conversion and the two-point attempt was knocked away in the end zone.
“It was a huge momentum shift,” Jolley said. “If we got into the half tied and they’re getting the ball back, it’s a completely different came. But instead of 7-7, it was 13-0 and it was huge for us right at the end of the half.”
Stoughton’s defense started the second half as it did the first half, forcing a turnover on downs on CM’s first offensive possession. And its offense also had a repeat of the first half, taking its first possession to the end zone.
Ly’s game-long 18-yard run got the drive started early and eventually, Stoughton found itself on the CM 11-yard line. It looked as though Stoughton had a touchdown on fourth down, but an offensive offside call negated the score and pushed Stoughton back five yards.
Stoughton came up short of the end zone on the next play, but did get the ball to the 1-yard line on a pass from Evan Gibb (12/16, 137 yards, six carries, 30 yards) to Ruben Gonzalez (six catches, 79 yards) for a first down. Gibb then punched it in on a sneak and then found Sjoquist for the two-point conversion and a 21-0 lead with 5:18 left in the third quarter.
CM finally got on the board with under two minutes to play in the third, when Goffredo hit Khari Johnson in the flat. A bad snap on the extra point attempt resulted in a try for a two-point that failed.
The Black Knights did a nice job responding, putting together a 10-play, 58-yard drive that took up nearly six minutes (5:57) of the clock. Gibb’s completion of 23 yards to Iverson on a first down surprised the Scarlet Knights and was the longest play of the drive. Sjoquist punched it on an 8-yard toss with 6:41 to play.
The Scarlet Knights scored on its final drive of the game. Goffredo floated one to the left side of the end zone and Franklin native Jarrett Martin absolutely climbed a ladder to win a jump ball for a 24-yard touchdown. CM converted the two-point conversion.
Stoughton then ran eight plays to kill the final 3:55 and all of CM’s timeouts.
“Being 2-0 right now with practically 99% of these kids being new, I’m as thrilled as I’ve been while coaching,” Burke said.
Stoughton (2-0) opens Davenport division play on Friday night when it takes a trip to Jack Martinelli Field in Foxboro to take on the Warriors (1-1).
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