PHOTO BY BOB ROCHE
Abraham Toe has a little trouble fielding a kick during Saturday’s game.
By GORDON VINCENT
FOXBOROUGH — All season long, St. Mary’s had dominated its opponents with a grinding ball-control offense. One of the keys to the Spartans’ success was a lack of turnovers.
Uncharacteristically, the Spartans turned the ball over six times, losing four fumbles and throwing a pair of interceptions in their 34-8 loss to East Bridgewater in Saturday’s Division 3A Super Bowl, at Gillette Stadium.
Worse still for St. Mary’s, two fumbles were returned for touchdowns by the Vikings, both by Joseph Donahue, who took a botched snap 68 yards in the second quarter to give the Vikings a 7-0 lead and then picked up a fumble on a reverse and ran it back 32 yards in the fourth quarter to account for the final score.
“I’m not sure how to explain it,” said St. Mary’s coach Matt Durgin. “Maybe it was nerves. Maybe we were trying to make too much happen and we made mistakes. I don’t know. But give East Bridgewater a lot of credit. They’re a great football team and they made things happen.”
Donahue had a phenomenal game for the Vikings. He recovered two other fumbles, snagging a high snap from center on a punt at St. Mary’s 1-yard line, at the end of the Spartans’ first offensive series of the game. The Vikings, who also committed four turnovers, turned the ball right back over to the Spartans one play later when St. Mary’s linebacker Brendon Donahue fell on a fumble to keep East Bridgewater out of the end zone.
“I know it doesn’t look like it because of the score, but I thought our defense played great, especially in the first half,” Durgin said. “Maybe we got a little tired at the end of the game. I don’t know. Our defense was on the field for almost the entire third quarter.”
The Vikings opened the second half with a 62-yard, 12-play drive that made the score 14-0. The Spartans’ first possession of the third quarter ended after just one play, a fumble that East Bridgewater’s Donahue recovered at the Spartans’ 39. Five plays later, Vikings’ quarterback Liam LeVangie threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Michael Khoury to put East Bridgewater ahead by three scores with only 40 seconds left in the third quarter.
“For (Donahue) to have a day like he did today is unbelievable,” said East Bridgewater coach Shawn Tarpey. “To recover four fumbles and bring back two of them for touchdowns in a Super Bowl is the kind of game everyone dreams about.”