By Michael Hurley
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
There were a few areas in which the Warriors could’ve been a little cleaner, but Medfield High football coach Erik Ormberg focused on the big picture following his team’s 32-0 shutout over the Mohawks. Three games into the season–and a gauntlet of five straight Tri-Valley League Large games starting tomorrow in Norwood–he likes what he sees.
“We’re 3-0,” he said. “Our nonleague slate is over. We had two hard-fought games and the shutout here. We’re relatively healthy as we head into the (Tri-Valley League Large teams). Winning high school football games is hard to do with consistency. To win three in a row…how many teams across the state are 3-0? It’s a challenge. The guys came out, shut these guys down and did what they were supposed to do.”
In their last 14 games, the Warriors have scored nearly 500 points in compiling a 13-1 record. Often overlooked is their success on the other side of the ball. Only twice in that span has an opponent scored more than two touchdowns.
Friday night the Warriors didn’t allow the hosts inside their own 40-yard-line and gave up just 60 yards of total offense for the game. They sacked talented Millis quarterback Owen Caulfield twice and held him to just 42 yard passing on nine completions. Senior captain Dani Chahine set the tone early when he flew off the left end untouched to drop Caulfield for a seven-yard loss on the second play of the game.
“What we’ve done defensively for the last 14 games is impressive,” said Ormberg. “We knew they had good receivers and a good quarterback but we felt they probably couldn’t take too many deep shots.”
The Warriors were impressive in all phases against Millis. Chahine’s sack led to a short Millis punt that set the Warriors up with a short field. A team effort moved Medfield from the Millis 38 to the 8–a 14-yard run by Noah Smith, two more from Will Keaveney and then 15 by Owen Graber, who picked up a fumble and rumbled inside the 10. Quarterback Owen Sokolowski called his own number from there for an eight-yard score. The PAT hit the upright for a 6-0 score with 8:17 left in the first quarter.
Millis went three-and-out on its next series to set up Sokolowski’s second score–a 23-yard scamper on the right side. The senior captain added the PAT rush for a 14-0 lead with 3:36 left.
Millis misplayed the ensuing kickoff and sophomore Stamatis Polechronis’ recovery set Medfield up in Mohawk territory. Smith ripped off 24 yards on second down and a 13-yard gain by Lucas Sullivan set up Will Keaveney for an eight-yard score and a 21-0 lead late in the first quarter.
Sullivan finished with 132 yards rushing and Smith had 120, . Defensively, Nathan Bills led the way with five tackles, Graber had four and when both Keaveney and Sullivan had three apiece.
Millis’ longest drive came in the third quarter when Caulfield completed four straight passes to move the Mohawks from their own 20 to near midfield. But two incompletions and a Bills sack, on which Caulfield was flagged for intentional grounding because his pass didn’t reach the line of scrimmage, ended the hosts’ best chance. Medfield then bridged the third and fourth quarters with an 11-play drive capped by Rory Medeiros’ 23-yard field goal. The Warriors finished the scoring with 5:38 to play in the game when Sokolowski hit Sullivan, who began the drive with a 68-yard run on first down, for a seven-yard touchdown. Senior Rico Benitez converted the PAT rush for the 32-0 final.
“In the first quarter it was 21-0 and that’s the way we wanted to start,” said Ormberg. “We told the kids we can’t expect you to maintain the highest level of intensity at all times, but at the same time we want to be able to execute. We put the ball on the ground, which we usually don’t do. That’s something we have to look at and clean up. But at the end we bounced back and starting running iso because they were loading up c gap. We had some success running inside and then Sully had that big run at the end to give us some breathing room.”
