Mansfield's come-back falls short
Not all great games are wins
Thanks to 92Grad for the suggestion.
Saturday October 26, 1991
Mansfield:- Spotting King Philip 21 points for three quarters, Mansfield rallys with 20 unanswered fourth quarter points, but goes for the win rather than the tie.Leading 21-0 after three quarters coach Tom Schmidt said "It shouldn't have been a ballgame after that, because we let them back in. We got tired and we got mentally lazy. But I don't want to take anything away from either side." Schmidt continued. " If anything this is the way the game should have been played instead of 21-0, because I knew they (Mansfield) have a very good football team.
For coach Redding whose team fell to 6-1 despite posting 20 fourth quarter points, the effort was both disappointing and satisfying.Only a great defensive play by the KP linebacker, who deflected a two point conversion pass away from tight end Karl Boettger with 2:03 left to play, kept the Hornets from their seventh victory.
" I knew we were tired, but it seemed to me that if we were tired, they should be exhausted. Our strength is that we're in good shape, we play hard and we are a second-half team, and that showed today."
Indeed when junior Tony Forte's twisting, 30 yard touchdown run pulled the Hornets within one point, Redding turned down the easy tie and went for the win. "There was some thought of going for the tie, but we had so much momentum and we knew exactly the play we wanted to run. We had the tight end open against their linebacker, and if he doesn't tip it, we win the game."
" After the third quarter, we started playing great defense and we started running and passing, we just ran out of time." Forte's 21 yard sweep sparked Mansfield's first scoring drive, an eight-play, 39 yard march leading to Brian DeGirolamo's two-yard plunge with 7:36 left.
A KP fumble at the Mansfield 40, and Aleman threw passes of 27 yards to Matt Carpenter, two yards toDeGirolamo, 10 yards to Boettger and 18 yards to Forte, the latter right down the seam in KP's zone defense for a touchdown with 4:08 left to play. A two point pass to Steve Moore made it 21-14.
Again Mansfield held and took over on its own 43 yard line. Aleman went to Moore for a quick 11 yards, than had to scramble and throw on the run to Moore for 16 yards to the KP 30 yard line.
Forte got the next handoff with 2:11 left and twisted and turned his way away from the pack and cut from right to left to reach the end zone. Leading to the failed two point conversion.
| Mansfield | King Philip |
| First downs | 16 | 16 |
| Total yards | 305 | 318 |
| Rushing yds | 188 | 229 |
| Passing yds | 122 | 102 |
| Sacks | 1-5 | 3-13 |
| Att-Comp-int | 19-10-1 | 10-6-0 |
| Punts-avg | 2-30 | 4-29 |
| Penalties-yds | 5-36 | 2-20 |
Scoring
First quarter
KP:-Foster 46 yd run (kick), 5:58
Third quarter
KP:- Tibbetts 9 yd run (kick failed), 6:21
KP:- DeStefano 13 yd run (rush), 6:35
Fourth quarter
Man:- DeGirolamo 2 yd run (pass failed), 2:28
Man:- Forte 18 yd pass (Moore pass), 5:52
Man:- Forte 30 yd run (pass failed), 7:57
Mansfield individual stats
Rushing: DeGirolamo 14-53, Aleman 2-(-2), Carpenter 7-48, Forte 6-89.
Passing: Aleman 16-9-1--114, Camelio 3-1-0--8
Receiving: Boettger 3-41, Forte 2-16, Carpenter 1-27, DeGirolamo 1-2, Moore 3-36.
Back to contents page