SCARBOROUGH — Over the course of time, Maine high school football playoff games have been won and lost in every way imaginable.
But it’s safe to say that no team has ever won a game quite like how Scarborough did against Sanford in Friday night’s Western Class A quarterfinal.
Up 36-22 with just over three minutes to play, the Red Storm lined up to punt at the Spartans’ 42. That’s when everything went haywire: First, Griffin Madden’s kick went straight up in the air and was caught by his own teammate Zach Carriero behind the line of scrimmage.
With no whistle blown and the Red Storm sideline yelling for him to run, Carriero took the ball untouched 42 yards for a touchdown to put his team up 42-22, a score that ended up being the winning margin as the fourth-seeded Red Storm survived a late comeback bid by the fifth-seeded Spartans to win a 42-35 shootout at the Kippy Mitchell Sports Complex.
“I don’t know what happened. I didn’t even know that was legal or that was a thing,” Carriero said of his touchdown. “The coaches yelled, ”˜Run!’ and I did.”
The punt and run play ”“ which left players and coaches on both sides bewildered ”“ was made possible by a new rule, said Sanford coach Keith Noel, who had a discussion with head referee Ray Petit after the play occurred. The key, Petit explained, was that the punt dropped down behind the line of scrimmage, allowing for any player to catch it and run.
“It’s a new rule, but I didn’t know about it,” Noel said. “It just happened. It’s a rule and they got us there.”
Oddly enough, Carriero’s catch and run ”“ which players, coaches and the game officials all said they’d never seen actually happen in a game before ”“ wasn’t the first appearance of the new rule in Friday’s game.
The same thing had happened earlier in the second quarter when Sanford’s Nick Howard got a fingertip on Madden’s punt, sending it straight up. Scarborough’s Aren Dickman caught the ball when it came down, and after a delay of a few seconds when everyone though the play was over, ran for a first down, but the play was called back due to a penalty.
“It caught us off guard,” Noel said. “We teach poison to our kids (to get away from the ball) all year long and it bit us. It’s frustrating but it is what it is. That’s life and you’ve got to roll with the punches.”
“It’s just one of those plays,” Sanford’s Chase Eldredge said. “We’ve got to get away because we can’t touch it, and then the next thing you know he’s running off with it. I don’t really know if there’s a way to approach that. I’ve never seen that in a game before.”
The game was high-scoring throughout as Scarborough’s passing game ”“ Red Storm quarterback Jack Hughes hit three different players for touchdowns and threw for 320 yards on 17-of-22 passing ”“ shot it out with Sanford’s ground and pound.
Sanford had led 15-14 after one and 22-14 late in the second quarter, taking advantage of three early Scarborough turnovers and scoring on touchdown runs of 37, 9 and 2 yards by Eddie Michetti, Peter Hegarty and Chase Eldredge, respectively.
The Spartans had a chance to go into halftime up by even more just before the break but were stuffed on a 3rd-and-2 at the Red Storm 48 and forced to punt. Scarborough got the ball back and marched 74 yards on just six plays in a span of 2:19, with the big play a 30-yard scramble by Hughes on 4th-and-15 to bring the ball down to the Sanford 3.
Hughes hit 6-foot-6 tight end Jacob Gardner on a jump ball on the next play with 16.6 seconds left in the half, and Carriero carried over the 2-point conversion to tie the game at 22-22 at halftime.
Scarborough then took the lead, 29-22, on its first possession after the break as Hughes found Gardner and receiver Milani Hicks on passes of 25 yards each to set up a Carriero 11-yard TD run.
Sanford looked poised to even things back up on its next drive but stalled at the Scarborough 31, where on 4th-and-10 the Spartans fumbled on an attempted reverse play.
“We tried a couple of things and it didn’t work out,” Noel said. “You’ve got to take advantage of all the things you can.”
Hughes found Carriero over the middle for a 38-yard gain on the next play after the fumble, and two plays later found Gardner for a 14-yard TD to make it 36-22 with 2:05 remaining in the third,
The game remained scoreless ”“ in large part thanks to two more Spartans turnovers ”“ until Carriero’s wild touchdown run on the punt play with 2:59 left, putting the Storm seemingly out of sight with a 42-22 lead.
But Eldredge hit Michetti for a 54-yard TD pass on the Spartans’ first play of their next drive, and after forcing a Scarborough punt, Eldredge found Michetti for another score, this one from 14 yards out to cap a 45-yard drive and pull the Spartans to within 42-35 with 58 seconds remaining.
That’s where the rally stopped, however, as the Spartans’ onside kick was recovered by Gardner’s safe pair of hands to seal things for the Red Storm.
“We were down by 21 and had a chance,” Eldredge said. “We didn’t get it but we still fought and I’m very proud of that.”
It was the fifth win in a row for Scarborough (5-4), which will face top-ranked Thornton Academy (7-1) in a semifinal next Saturday. The Trojans walloped the Red Storm 54-0 in their regular-season meeting.
Sanford, which had beaten Scarborough 29-14 back on Sept. 5 in the opening game of the season, ended its year at 4-5.
“That’s a very good team over there playing very good football,” Noel said. “Our kids fought like heck to stay with them and you just want a shot at the end and we did. That’s big character from those kids right there to have that effort.”
— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or cdunbar@journaltribune.com.
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