Emanouil Leads Chelmsford to 35-16 Win Over Tewksbury

It was supposed to be a showdown between the top two running backs in the Merrimack Valley Conference. against Chelmsford's Eddie Sheridan, head-to-head, toe-to-toe.

But in turned out to be the Colby Emanouil show Friday night at Chelmsford's Simonian/Alumni Stadium, as the Lions' senior quarterback stole the spotlight by throwing for two touchdowns and running for another, leading Chelmsford to a 35-16 victory.

The win, combined with Billerica's 42-14 loss to Central Catholic Friday night, clinches the MVC Division 1 championship for the Lions, who will now represent the league in the MIAA playoffs later this month.

"The last few weeks teams have really been focusing on Eddie (Sheridan)," said Emanouil after he completed 8-of-14 passes for 115 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone on Friday. "They've been putting eight people in the box and that just opens it up for us to pass the ball. They were all over Eddie tonight so we just tried to take advantage of that with the passing game."

Tewksbury did as good a job as any team has done in holding Sheridan in check. The senior running back carried the ball 13 times for a season-low 75 yards, and was held out of the end zone for the first time all year. Sheridan had led the entire state in scoring with 21 touchdowns coming into the game.

But Chelmsford returned the favor by shutting down Bettano, holding Tewksbury's senior superstar to a season low 14 yards rushing on nine carries. prior to Friday night, left the game early in the third quarter after taking a hard hit, and did not return to action.

"He (Bettano) is a big part of what we do, and on a night that we would have needed to have all hands on deck, it was tough to lose him," said Tewksbury coach Brian Aylward.

So with two of the league's top running backs being rendered ineffective, Emanouil stepped into a leading role and got the job done for Chelmsford. The 5-10, 175-pound senior led the Lions on a 10-play, 46-yard scoring drive in the latter stages of the first quarter, and drew first blood by scrambling 16 yards for a touchdown on 4th-and-8 from the Tewksbury 16-yard line.

Emanouil made it 14-0 in favor of Chelmsford when he completed an eight-yard touchdown pass to junior tight end Joe St. Hilaire with 2:16 to go in the second quarter. And Emanouil all but sealed the win for CHS when he connected with senior wide receiver Vinny Maniscalco on a 20-yard touchdown pass with just 11 seconds left in the first half.

"He (Emanouil) is a great playmaker," said Chelmsford coach Bruce Rich. "When things look like they've broken down around him, he makes something out of nothing. You don't see him statistically lighting up the scoreboard every week...But he can make plays."

Down 21-0 at the break, the under-manned Redmen had little hope of making a comeback in this one. Senior quarterback Kevin Saunders was in street clothes on the sidelines with a concussion, leaving sophomore Johnny Aylward and junior Zak DiRocco to split the quarterback duties. DiRocco went out with an ankle injury early in the third quarter, leaving the elder Aylward with only a few weapons at his disposal.

Senior running back Dan Altavesta did everything he could in Bettano's absence, carrying the ball eight times for 39 yards and a touchdown. And the younger Aylward threw his first career touchdown pass, a 16-yard strike to senior wide receiver Frankie McLaughlin as Tewksbury posted 16 fourth quarter points. But it was too little and too late.

"Even the guys we had out there were pretty dinged up,"Aylward said. "We had a lot of guys sucking it up. Regardless of who we had at quarterback I knew this was going to be tough. They're a good team and we needed to have all hands on deck to play them, and we didn't have that coming in."

The Lions rested many of their starters in the second half, but still produced points. Senior offensive lineman Connor McLaughlin scored his first touchdown of the season when he pounced on a Sheridan fumble in the Tewksbury end zone in the third quarter. And junior running back Sean Sarault made it 35-0 with seven minutes to play with an impressive 47-yard touchdown run.

Chelmsford keeps its MVC record unblemished at 7-0 with the win, and Rich could not have been happier for his team after learning that Billerica had lost and his Lions were the league champions.

"We're happy," Rich said. "This group deserves it. They've worked hard the whole off-season to get to this point...We know we can actually be better than we are. We know we can get better.

"Right now, we're not even thinking about the playofffs," he added. "It's nice that we've qualified, but our goal right now is just to get better over the next couple of weeks and be ready for Billerica on Thanksgiving, because I know they'll be fired up for us."