The ConVal football team scored two touchdowns before the sun even set on their season opener, but it was the last score – under the full moon and the Friday night lights – that gave them a history-making win.
First-year head coach Brad Davis, a ConVal Hall of Famer himself and one of the Cougars’ all-time great running backs, said he’d never been involved in an overtime game up until Friday night’s 21-20 win over visiting Kennett.
“I’ve never played one, and I hadn’t coached one yet,” Davis said. “Resilience was the challenge. We were worried about these guys playing four quarters, and we went four quarters plus and got the W, so that’s big for us.”
ConVal scored twice to open the game in the first quarter, finding the end zone on a 25-yard pass from quarterback Kurt Dean (91 pass yards) to receiver Max Erickson and then again on a 25-yard scamper by running back Wetu Selby. With senior running back Henry MacKenzie-Hartwell (team-high 75 rush yards) leading the way, it looked as though the Cougars would run away with the game. But the Eagles were resilient in their own right, and ConVal started making their share of mental mistakes and penalties, and Kennett got right back in it, adding six points on a passing TD before halftime but missing the extra point to trail 14-6.
ConVal is a young team with a handful of sophomores starting on either side of the ball, so the Cougars still have a lot to learn.
“I told these guys – we’re not gonna have an undisciplined team,” Davis said, “So we’ll get it fixed.”
Kennett scored again in the third on a rushing touchdown by Jason Baker and converted the two-point conversion to tie the game. ConVal nearly won the game in the fourth quarter when Jack Telofski made an interception and returned the ball all the way to the Kennett three-yard-line, but the Eagles stopped the Cougars short and forced a missed field goal and regulation ended with things all tied up.
The current NHIAA overtime procedure gives teams alternating possessions from the 10-yard-line; score more points in your offensive possession than your opponent does in theirs, and you win. ConVal had first crack at it, and Dean – brilliant in his first start at QB – ran it in from the five. Spencer Bishop came on and redeemed his earlier miss with his third extra point of the day, and it was on Kennett to score at least seven.
Eagle quarterback Abraham Kelsch snuck the ball in from the two to make the score 21-20; the Eagles opted for a two-point conversion and the chance to win outright, but ConVal stoned them at the goal line, and after a seemingly eternal pause for the referees to confer, the try was waved no good and the Cougars erupted in celebration with their first overtime win in program history.
If the Cougars are to keep it up, they’ll have to lean into their identity – a ground-and-pound attack featuring MacKenzie-Hartwell, a tireless and powerful runner.
“The leg drive, the power, the resilience of him running the rock for us was huge,” Davis said.
ConVal has some explosivity, too, with Selby’s speed adding some dash to Hartwell’s smash, and Erickson, who hadn’t played organized football since middle school, flying all over the field as wide receiver and safety (before leaving the game with an injury, he added an interception, a couple leaping catches and a handful of strong punt returns). Henry Taylor made some key plays as well at receiver and safety, and big Cayden Park gave Kennett’s ballhandlers something to think about up the middle. MacKenzie-Hartwell led the team with 12 tackles.
“It’s a good way to start,” Coach Davis said, “and we’ve got Souhegan next week. Souhegan is defending state champion, and they lost like five guys. So we have a mountain to climb for this next week.”
The Cougars (1-0) host Souhegan (1-0) Friday at 7 p.m.