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Adam Cote Jr. backpedaled after the final snap, watching the seconds tick off the Waterhouse Field scoreboard while the cheers rained down from the bench and from Sanford fans. Perrin Shaw walked with his index finger raised, his gaze fixed on the sky.
It was the win the Spartans had been longing for, and after the toughest of springs and summers, the one they knew they needed.
Jayden Franco ran for two touchdowns and added a third on a game-changing screen pass, and the Spartans made new coach Todd Hildebrand’s debut a winning one Thursday night with a 28-14 victory over Biddeford in the team’s first game since lineman Jony Hunter’s suicide in May.
It didn’t come easily. Sanford built a 14-0 lead, only for the Tigers to pull even. But a team that won only one game last year was ready to pull it out.
“It’s surreal,” Hildebrand said. “I have a lot of gratitude, and I had a lot of gratitude all day. … Watching them fight is telling me we’re changing this the right way.”
Rebuilding is tough enough, but the Spartans had to endure months of heartbreak and grieving after the news about Hunter rocked the school. As they arrived at Biddeford, played their game and then celebrated on the turf field afterward, their thoughts were on the player who wasn’t there. Not physically, at least.
“From the bus ride here to the final snap of this game, this entire game was dedicated to Jony,” said Shaw, a senior running back who had 72 total yards. “After that last snap of the game, I know that all my brothers, we all broke down. We all looked to the sky, we all see Jony up there looking down on us.”
One of Hunter’s best friends on the team, Andrew Nickerson, sported a new tattoo on his left arm of the two sitting on a bench, with a halo above Hunter’s head. He also wore a new jersey number — No. 77, the one Hunter wore last year.
“I think he’s right behind me with every push, every pancake I get,” Nickerson said. “I think he’s right on top of me when I’m on top of that kid. I think he’s there, and I think he guided us to a win tonight.”
It couldn’t have started much better. On the second drive of the game, Shaw’s 56-yard reception keyed an 83-yard drive that was capped by a Franco 5-yard run. After a Drew McGrath interception, Cote kept it himself for a 7-yard score and a 14-0 lead with 5:01 left in the half.
“We started off on fire,” Hildebrand said. “I started thinking ‘We might walk away with this one.’ We got a little comfortable.”
Biddeford needed a jolt and got it when Kelly O’Guinn (73 yards receiving, 30 rushing) took a screen pass and outran the Sanford defense for a 67-yard score with 1:25 to go in the half. On the first drive of the third, Biddeford struck again when Julius Searles (six catches, 73 yards) made a circus catch on a 15-yard jump ball on fourth-and-12, tying it at 14 with 7:05 left in the third.
Needing a response again, Sanford again looked to Franco. On the next drive, he took a screen pass, slipped a couple of tackles down the right side and raced to the end zone for a 71-yard score, making it 21-14 with 4:39 left in the third. Franco (15 carries, 80 yards) added a 15-yard TD run in the final seconds of the third that rounded out the scoring.
“It changed the whole deal,” Hildebrand said of the screen. “Once we got that, it got the air back in us.”
Even in the moment, Franco could tell that was the case.
“It completely flipped the whole game,” said Franco, who teamed with Ricky Callis (15 carries, 64 yards) in an effective tandem. “While I was running (off), I saw everyone stand up, everyone run on the field trying to dap me up, it was a great feeling.”
It turned into a victory that served as the perfect start to a new era.
“It was a good game in the first half, and in the second half, we just took it,” McGrath said. “Everyone was going full speed, I liked that. Everyone’s effort was just through the roof today.”
