Windham 34

Cheverus 28

They always say it isn’t over until it’s over. Friday night, the Windham football team proved the saying is true by overcoming three 14-point deficits on their way to a 34-28 win over visiting Cheverus. Jack Mallis scored four touchdowns for the Eagles to lead the comeback charge.

“This is two weeks in a row we’ve won big games,” said Windham head coach Matt Perkins. “We’re starting to solidify ourselves that we’re not pretenders going through cakewalks playing bad teams. Cheverus is a good team. They hit and they come at you.”

Things didn’t start well for the Eagles. A fumble on the opening kickoff gave the Stags the ball at the Windham 23. On the first play from scrimmage, William Walsh rumbled 22 yards to the goal line. On the next play, he was in the end zone and just 16 seconds into the game Cheverus was up 7-0.

Windham’s next possession wasn’t very productive either. David Ingraham was held for a loss on the first play. That was followed by a false start that made it second and 18. After a couple of plays for positive yards, the Eagles were forced to punt.

Cheverus took over on the Windham 45 and needed just three plays to find their way back to the end zone. Walsh carried for five yards on the first two plays. Then Matthew Place ran up the middle 40 yards for the score. That made it 14-0 just four minutes into the game.

“I remembered the Kennebunk game when they returned the opening kickoff, I just know never to let up,” Ingraham said. “In that game, they returned the opening kickoff and just like that we were down. But we never gave up and came back.”

Midway through the first quarter, the Eagles finally got things going offensively with several big gains on the ground. Ingraham ripped off a 16-yard run on first down to get the Eagles inside Cheverus territory. Two plays later, Ingraham ran for another 20 yards. After a Matthew Gledhill run got the Eagles to the 3 yard line, Mallis bulled his way in from there. Tyler Littlefield’s kick made it 14-7.

Cheverus wouldn’t let the Eagles get any closer, at least for the time being. With Windham moving the ball down the field, Peter Gwilym intercepted the ball to give the Stags another chance. Eleven plays later, Gwilym connected with Andrew Poston for a 10-yard touchdown pass. That put the Stags up 21-7.

Windham answered right back with a long scoring drive of their own. They drove 62 yards in four minutes and 11 plays. At one point it seemed the drive might stall out on fourth and five. But Jackson Taylor hit Josh Cahoon for an eight-yard pass. Eventually Mallis punched it in from two yards out to make it 21-14.

Just as they had done early in the first half, the Eagles fumbled and Cheverus took over with great field position early in the second half. It took just one play for Walsh to go 20 yards to the end zone and put the Stags up 14 points again, 28-14.

“(Cheverus is) an adrenaline team,” Perkins said. “If they get the ball on your side you’re in trouble; you can’t let that happen.”

But the Eagles answered right back again. They began on their own side of the 50 but a 44-yard pass play from Taylor to Cahoon put the Eagles closer. Eventually it was Mallis who scored again, this time from six yards out. That made it 28-21.

After the kickoff, Cheverus began on their own 22. Poston was tackled for a five-yard loss on the first play, but gained four of those back on second down. On third down, Cody McLean and Matt Morse got through the line and sacked Gwilym for a loss of six yards.

That forced the Stags to punt from deep in their end. Ingraham came sprinting around the right side of the line and blocked the punt. The ball rolled into the end zone where Ingraham fell on it for the touchdown. Littlefield then tied the game with the extra point kick.

“I got the holes that I needed and I was right there just to take it off his foot and I recovered it in the end zone,” Ingraham said.

After Cheverus was forced to punt again, the Eagles began near midfield. In just four plays they were in the end zone again. Mallis scored from 45 yards out to give the Eagles their first lead of the game. Littlefield’s kick was off the mark and the score was 34-28 with an entire quarter to go.

The Stags got the ball with 9:51 to go in the fourth as they tried to tie the score. They ran off a 17 play, eight-minute drive that brought them to the Windham 24 but no closer. Cheverus converted on four third downs during the drive, but got nothing to show for it.

“These guys are pretty relentless,” Perkins said. “We had some subs and had to make a lot of adjustments. We had a key guy out for us and we had a sophomore in at nose guard and trained him on the spot. We didn’t think we’d have to, but it was in our back pocket. We went to it late in the second quarter and that changed the game for us and we were able to stop them inside.”

Big play of the game

The Eagles made it clear they were not going down without a fight. The Windham defense held the Stags deep in their own end midway through the third. Following the sack, Ingraham was able to block the punt and score the tying touchdown.

“That was huge,” Perkins said of the block. “That’s something we work on a lot and we almost had one early. We adjusted a shade there and it seemed to work.”

They said it

“You put in so much time and effort to build a program and the kids have to have validity to what you do,” Perkins said. “Last year was a tough year, we were 1-7. You can’t come out and say ‘we’re going to start nine sophomores and we’re going to get better.’ You can’t say that. Is it true? Probably. But now they understand what it takes to win. We were down 14 points three times and easily could have hung it up. But we just kept fighting. We’ve got that mentality of don’t give up. This will be a huge one to hang our hat on down the road.”

Unsung hero

The Eagles got some big contributions from a pair of sophomores on Friday. Max McDonald made a pair of big plays on special teams and Matt Morris made his presence known at nose guard.

“Matt Morris coming in and playing nose guard and eating up the middle for us was big,” said Perkins. “We put him in and he was an animal. Max McDonald on kickoffs, the kid made the catch and (McDonald) drilled him right in the middle of the field and made two back-to-back key tackles for us. To have sophomores step up and do that for us is huge.”

Next Week

The Eagles will close out their regular season on the road when they take on 1-6 Westbrook. The Blue Blazes have struggled all season and are coming off a 38-8 loss to Gorham last week. The Eagles should win this and will likely enter the playoffs next week as the No. 3 seed.