Sports
Sloppy First Half Dooms Milton in Opener
Milton fell to Bay State Conference foe Needham, 35-20, in the season opener, despite an inspired second half of play.
The Milton High School football team showed plenty of signs of life in the second half, but a 22-point hole in the first half was too much to overcome as the Wildcats fell in their home opener 35-20 to Needham on Saturday night at Brooks Field.
The Wildcats started slow and had a tough time getting out of its own way in the first two quarters. On two occasions, Milton started drives inside it's own 10-yard line which ended up being very costly.
"Your options become limited when you do that," Wildcats' head coach Jim Bowes said about the bad field position.
Find out what's happening in Miltonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Ian Riley's 20-yard punt return set the Rockets up with great field position deep in Milton territory mid-way through the first quarter. Three plays later, Kevin Brennan avoided the Milton rush, rolled out to his right and bought enough time for Connor Murray to get open in the end zone for six. Nick Wong's extra point was good.
In the second, a similar Riley return gave Needham the ball on Milton's 14-yard line. This time, Needham was stopped on third down, but a gamble on a fourth-and-4 paid off as Brennan rolled out left and decided to keep it himself for the touchdown. Brian Tedoldi fumbled the snap on the kick but picked it up and found daylight for the 15-0 lead.
Find out what's happening in Miltonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Not much was going right offensively and defensively for Milton in the first half. The Wildcats racked up 14 penalties in the game, with a majority of those coming in the opening half.
"We were undisciplined," said Bowes. "There were some key personal foul penalties that kept drives alive and kept the ball out of our hands."
Mike Vespa would plunge in from 10 yards out and a Wong extra point would make it 22-0 before the half.
The Wildcats were able to put up all 20 of their points in the second half, but time of possession was clearly in the favor of the Rockets. Milton only held the ball for roughly six minutes in the entire second half, but a kickoff return by Matthew Lezama and strip sack and fumble recovery for a touchdown by Kemani Jones kept the hopes alive.
When Milton did get the ball in the second half, with a little over four minutes to go in the third, it took only five plays to cover 81 yards. Matt Reagan went 5-for-5 on the drive and finished it up with a 34-yard TD pass to Matt Hunt to get Milton on the board, 22-6.
Jones, who was hobbled after forced sack earlier in the night, stripped the ball from Brennan, scooped the ball off a bounce and trampled into the end zone at 10:21 of the fourth. Reagan's 2-point conversion rush brought the score to 22-14.
Brennan hooked up with Tedoldi for a 14-yard TD pass which deflated the crowd, but Lezama's dazzling 78-yard kick return, which saw him shed a number of would be tacklers, got the fans right back on their feet.
On the ensuing drive, Vespa rumbled up the middle 42-yards for the game clinching score, 35-20.
"He did an excellent job," Needham head coach David Duffy said of Vespa. "He made some really nice cuts and he was really banging it up in there."
The loss drops Milton to 0-1 on the season, but the second half gave coach Bowes some good vibes heading into next week.
"We made some plays some plays on special teams and we had some kids step up," he said. "The attitude was not to be denied and we got a lot of 'I want to' here. So we just got to look at the film and clean up."
