Goffstown football uses defense, special teams to beat Milford

MILFORD – The Goffstown High School football team knew it wasn’t going to escape a three-touchdown hole on one play.

The Grizzlies tried to get the scores back one at a time, and all of a sudden, the points started coming.

Goffstown fell behind Milford, 21-0, but rallied quickly and held on for a 30-28 victory over the Spartans on Friday. The Grizzlies pulled out the win with defense and special teams, as their offense got stuck in the muddy field at Milford.

““We’ve been drilling special teams and defense,” Goffstown coach Justin Hufft said. “I have great coaches that work on that. The last couple of weeks, we’ve been doing better in both areas. We have to be. We can’t win on just offense. We have to be better balanced.”

There wasn’t quite a balance, but Goffstown was able to win despite gaining only 103 yards on offense. Quarterback Connor Benjamin had 88 yards and a touchdown rushing, and was just 1 of 10 passing, but that one completion went for a 13-yard touchdown strike just before halftime.

The Spartans outgained the Grizzlies, 297-103, ran 69 plays to Goffstown’s 43, and had an 18-minute advantage in time of possession, but a blocked punt, a big kickoff return, and three turnovers did in Milford.

Milford’s Harrison Urda had 116 yards and two touchdowns on 5 of 9 passing, and ran for a score in the third quarter, but he also threw two interceptions, both of which Goffstown turned into points. Tyler Cooney led Milford with 71 yards and a touchdown rushing, while Mitchell Banuskevich had 62 yards on the ground and caught a 30-yard touchdown pass.

The Spartans had a shot at the win, driving down to the Grizzlies’ 15-yard line, but Banuskevich lost a fumble on third down with 2:44 left to play and Goffstown was able to run out the clock from there.

“They won the game, so congratulations, but we felt that we needed to do offensively and defensively to win,” Jones said. “There were just too many miscues. That’s what happens when it gets muddy and wet.”

The game was played through a steady rain that left parts of the field a muddy mess and contributed to seven fumbles by both teams.

“The conditions change things,” Hufft said. “It makes it so parts of our offense are harder to execute. Keith is a great coach and he knows that and he started doing stuff that made it difficult to run the ball. They came out ready to play and they took it to us.”

Milford got out to a 21-0 lead in the second quarter, scoring on a 1-yard run by Cooney in the first quarter before two Goffstown turnovers led to Urda’s two touchdown passes.

But after Urda hit Evan Perron for an 11-yard score that made it a three-touchdown game, Goffstown’s Ashton Florence returned the ensuing kickoff 85 yards, setting up a 3-yard scoring run by Benjamin.

“We said let’s score the next touchdown,” Hufft said. “We can’t score 21 points all at once, we need to get a touchdown. Ashton picked us up with that kick return. We needed a play and he made it for us.”

The Spartans responded by driving to the Goffstown 15-yard line, but Florence intercepted a pass by Urda and returned it 70 yards to the Milford 25, setting up Benjamin’s scoring pass to Christian Marquis. On those two returns, Florence had more yards (155 combined) than the Grizzlies did on offense (103).

“We didn’t want to make a stupid mistake and let them back in, and then we let them return a kick,” Jones said. “Then we were going in to score, and it was a tough read. They did a good job rotating the secondary and it was a nice pick. Then we let them run that back down. We gave them some great field position.”

That continued into the third quarter, as the Spartans went three-and-out on their first drive. Milford tried to punt it away, but Perron’s kick was blocked by Ryan Pinard and recovered in the end zone by Connor Wynn to make it 22-21.

On Milford’s next play, Urda was intercepted by Marquis, who returned it to the 18-yard line. Six plays later, Peter Shea ran it in from 6 yards out to put Goffstown up 30-21 with 6:44 left in the third.

The Spartans answered the touchdown with an 18-play, 78-yard drive that ate up 8:43 and ended with Urda’s 1-yard scoring run. On the drive, Milford converted on fourth-and-21 on a 27-yard pass from Urda to Ian Michaud.

After getting a stop near midfield, Milford had one more chance. The Spartans faced a fourth-and-3 at the Goffstown 22 and Banuskevich ran for 5 yards to get the first down. Two plays later, Milford had a third down at the 15, but Banuskevich couldn’t control the handoff and Goffstown recovered.

“We were going to (kick a field goal), but we fumbled,” Jones said. “If they had just stopped us, we would have kicked it. (Kicker Morgan Andrews) needed to be on the 20.

“Banuskevich played his tail off and sometimes you make a mistake. Everybody makes it, it’s not just one kid. They made mistakes and we capitalized. We made mistakes and they capitalized.”