Down early, Academy Park defense takes over, beats Unionville

EAST MARLBOROUGH — The ball was up in the air long enough for Anis Hunter to know he had a shot at it.

The Academy Park cornerback was stride for stride with Unionville receiver Luke Shriver as they tracked a Matt McCloskey long ball in the fourth quarter. Both wanted it. Both had their hands on it.

When it counted most, as they plummeted back to earth, the player in Academy Park white simply wrestled it away.

Hunter’s interception was a microcosm of what the Knights did in the second half Friday night in the District 1 Class 5A quarterfinals. Down 13 points at halftime, they rattled off 28 straight points to upset the No. 3 Longhorns, 28-13, and book a spot in the final four.

Plain and simple – and leading with defense – they just got it done.

“We both jumped. He got it,” Hunter said. “But I knew I wasn’t going to let him come down with it, so I took it from him.”

The mid-air wrestling match was replicated in so many little moments by the No. 6 Knights (9-2). Down 13-0 at the break, they stormed out of the gates in the second half behind 225 rushing yards from Terrence Oliver and three rushing scores from Eric Willis.

But the AP defense held Unionville (10-2) to fewer yards of offense (26) than the number of points AP scored after the break.

“Defense always has that mentality, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, we’re going to snap,” said Willis, who added an interception and a fumble recovery among three second-half takeaways. “And we always stick to it. It was a little rough in the first half, but we stuck to it.”

“We got outplayed,” McCloskey said. “It’s all it is. Outplayed.”

In the opening 24 minutes, though, Unionville had thoroughly outplayed the Knights. With McCloskey at the controls, it assembled two masterful drives, eating up clock so that the first half elapsed over five tidy possessions.

Brendan D’Amico capped a 14-play, 65-yard drive with a one-yard score at 5:01 of the first quarter. At 5:03 of the second, McCloskey found Ryan Knightly for a five-yard TD after D’Amico converted a fourth-and-one. It capped a 12-play march covering 89 yards. At each of the toss-up plays that could kill a drive, most notably six converted third or fourth downs, the Longhorns came out on the right side of it.

“It was working for us,” McCloskey said. “We had the guys blocking for us. They’ve been incredible all season. That’s what we were doing, and it was working for us.”

That would end after a halftime break in which the Knights were defiant and far from defeated. After 155 yards of offense in the first half, Unionville had 26 after the interval. McCloskey ran 11 times for 36 yards and was 7-for-9 for 85 yards in the first half.

In the second, he was sacked three times, Ibrahim Sanogo getting him twice as part of three second-half tackles for loss. Damir Sammons had 1.5 tackles for loss, including a fourth-down stop, and Jalen Holman made himself a menace in the backfield.

The result was minus-11 yards rushing for McCloskey and four completions (and two INTs) for 30 yards.

“Everybody was in there talking about, ‘we’re not going out like this; we’re not losing,’” Willis said. “And we straightened everything out that we messed up in the first half and we came out ready to play. We never lost hope.”

AP took the lead on Willis’ keeper on fourth-and-five from the 15 with 35 seconds left in the third quarter to make it 14-13. An iffy late hit on the next Unionville drive gave the Longhorns the ball at the 30. But Sanogo followed with a sack, Jalen Allen (who forced a fumble) and Sanogo buried Ethan Bennick for a loss and Holman bottled up McCloskey in the pocket to set up a turnover on downs.

Ford, who carried 29 times for 225 yards, did most of the heavy lifting on the next drive. Willis, operating out of the wildcat package with quarterback Darrell Fields (4-for-13) struggling, capped it with his second TD off right end, getting the edge and blasting past the Unionville defense for 11 yards.

That made it 22-13 with 6:02 to play, setting the stage for Hunter’s INT, then another fourth-down stand orchestrated by Sammons. Willis added a 20-yard score in the final two minutes, bringing him to 10 carries for 94 yards.

The final horn sounded with Willis picking off McCloskey again, leaving no doubt as to which side of the ball fueled a monumental comeback.

“We went in that locker room, we said, ‘game’s not over,’” Hunter said. “We said, ‘we’re not losing,’ and we made sure we didn’t lose.”