Injuries foil Watertown upset bid
Watertown will always wonder, "What if?"
Carthage will take the victory, consider itself very lucky, and hope for major improvement the next few weeks.
In the latest renewal of their long-standing rivalry, the Cyclones and Comets battled right down to the end Saturday night in a Section 3 Class A National game. Carthage, trailing almost the entire game, drove 63 yards in the closing minutes and senior fullback Patrick Gibbons scored from a yard out with 1 minute, 44 seconds to play to give the Comets a 20-17 victory.
This one, however, might have been determined in the first half when Watertown, in command on both sides of the ball, lost not only its starting quarterback, junior Tyler Augliano, but his backup, senior Sean Scordo. Coach Vince Williams was forced to play the entire second half with senior tight end Adam McNulty at the controls. McNulty had not taken any snaps in practice, and Williams didn't know if he had ever played the position in a real game.
Watertown led 14-0 after Augliano engineered a 12-play, 80-yard drive and threw a 4-yard TD pass to Karlton Pack in the first quarter. Joshua Robinson's 18-yard interception return, and Demar Poindexter's second PAT, made it 14-0 for the Cyclones (0-1, 1-1) early in the second quarter.
Augliano went down with an apparent broken collarbone just before the first quarter ended. Scordo, also Watertown's free safety, suffered an Achilles tendon injury on pass coverage just before halftime.
"I really thought we had something special going with Tyler," Williams said. "When Sean went down, we asked Adam if he could play (quarterback) and he said yes."
However, with the WHS offense limited due to McNulty's inexperience, the Cyclones couldn't sustain any kind of momentum.
Carthage (2-0) finally struck with 1:40 to go in the half when Clay Nutter hit Thomas Grimm on a slant pattern for a 10-yard score and Ian Ates kicked the PAT.
"How big was that score?" asked Carthage coach Sam Millich. "I give Clay a lot of credit. He made a bad throw on that interception, but he rebounded and made some huge plays down the stretch."
Watertown's aggressive defense limited Carthage's ground attack to just 29 yards on 29 attempts. It got so bad that Millich went to a shotgun formation the entire second half, basically eschewing the run.
"Give them credit. They took away what we wanted to do in the running game," Millich said. "We just couldn't block (Watertown linebacker) Tom Capone. He disrupted everything."
Carthage tied it late in the third quarter. Nutter hit Gibbons on a 46-yard screen pass, Jolyon Davis scored on a 4-yard run, and Ates hit the PAT to make it 14-14.
Capone's all-out blitz on Nutter forced a fumble, which Capone fell on deep in Comets territory as the third quarter concluded. Demar Poindexter booted a 22-yard field goal to put WHS on top 17-14.
With just over six minutes to play, McNulty threw a pass up for grabs and Thomas Grimm intercepted. On the ensuing drive, Nutter hit Gibbons twice for completions of 18 and 12 yards, and scrambled twice for key gains. His last one put the ball on the one, and everybody knew who was getting the ball.
"I wanted it so bad," said Gibbons, who managed just 8 yards on six carries. "We had to use the screen pass to beat their blitz, and Clay made some great throws. The first half we were terrible. The second half was more like Carthage football."
