Late touchdown lifts Goffstown football past Salem

GOFFSTOWN – Justin Hufft had a timeout and a down to work with in the final seconds of Saturday’s game.

But rather than run the clock and kick a short field goal, the Goffstown High School football coach opted to listen to Nik Moquin, and the senior quarterback delivered.

On third-and-goal from the Salem 3-yard line, Moquin found Charlies Keith open over the middle for the go-ahead touchdown with 10.1 seconds remaining and Goffstown batted down a desperation pass by the Blue Devils on the final play of the game to win 39-35 in Division I action.

The touchdown capped a back-and-forth second half in which the teams combined for 50 points and five lead changes, including three in the fourth quarter.

“We did some good stuff offensively, especially in the second half, but defensively, there were big concerns,” Hufft said. “We need to be able to play better than this and we know that. At the end of the day, we played a really good football team that was well-prepared and we came out on top.”

The win, combined with other results from the weekend, means that Goffstown (7-1) will be the third seed in the North/South cluster, while Salem (6-2) will be the fourth seed when the postseason begins in two weeks.

On the day, Moquin was 20 of 32 passing for 380 yards and four touchdowns passes, all of which came in the second half, when the Grizzlies trailed on three different occasions. Down 14-10 at halftime, Goffstown turned two interceptions by Salem quarterback Matt Soldano into 10 points in the first 4:29 of the half.

After Salem regained a 21-20 lead, and then went up 28-20, the Grizzlies scored two touchdowns in 15 seconds – the second of which came after a Blue Devils’ fumble – to go ahead 32-28 with 9:40 to play.

Salem retook the lead on a two-play, 99-yard drive that ended with a 73-yard touchdown run by Josh Sibanda with 4:39 remaining.

“Goffstown is good, they played a great game,” Salem coach Rob Pike said. “(But) this group of guys is very resilient. Nothing gets them down and they’re going to keep playing. That’s a heck of a trait.”

Sibanda led the Blue Devils with 248 yards rushing and two touchdowns while Soldano was just 4 of 9 passing for 68 yards, but threw two touchdowns in the second half. But Soldano threw the two interceptions early in the third quarter, and James LeBlond fumbled in the fourth quarter to set up a Goffstown touchdown.

“It’s big in high school football,” said Hufft, whose team also had three turnovers. “In the first half, we were the team that turned the ball over, and in the second half, they turned it over. We were able to capitalize on it in the second half. It makes a difference. We’ve got to do a better job protecting the ball.”

Goffstown also got a big day from Andrew Duval, who caught nine passes for 173 yards and a touchdown, and Franklin Castillo-Diaz, who had four catches for 138 yards and two touchdowns.

After Soladno was picked off by Carter Chouinard, Moquin hit Castillo-Diaz for an 85-yard touchdown on the Grizzlies’ first play of the second half, giving them a 17-14 lead.

Soldano was intercepted again on the next drive, this time by Joey Poisson, but Goffstown had to settle for a 29-yard field goal by Sam Heidenreich to make it 20-14.

But Soldano and the Blue Devils bounced back, going on an 11-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 24-yard touchdown pass from the junior quarterback to Ben Emerson to put Salem up 21-20.

On the next drive, the Blue Devils recovered a Goffstown fumble at the Grizzlies 43, but the third quarter ended with Salem facing a fourth-and-9 at the 24. When the teams returned to the field, Soldano hit Jon St. Hillaire for another 24-yard score to put Salem up 28-20 six seconds into the fourth.

“He’s a mentally-tough kid, like so many of our guys are, and he’ll make a mistake, but he’ll shake it off,” Pike said of Soldano. “He’s a great quarterback. If we didn’t run it the ball so much, he’d be putting up a ton of stats. He’s going to win us a lot of ball games.”

Goffstown had an answer for the second touchdown pass, as Moquin hit Duval for a 43-yard touchdown with 9:55 left in the game. Still down two, the Grizzlies went for two, but Moquin’s pass was incomplete.

But on Salem’s first play from scrimmage, a fumble by LeBlond was recovered by Goffstown, and on the next play, Moquin connected with Castillo-Diaz for a 19-yard touchdown and a 32-28 lead with 9:40 to play.

The teams traded punts, which appeared to work out in Goffstown’s favor, as Duval downed a kick by Moquin at Salem’s 1-yard line. On first down, Soldano found St. Hillaire for a 23-yard gain, and on the next play, Sibanda ran 76 yards, dancing out of a tackle on the sideline, to put Salem back up 35-32.

“Sibanda is a heck of a running back, but he went through us and around us pretty well,” Hufft said. “We didn’t tackle well and we had kids not doing their job.

“We’ve had a bunch of games like this. It certainly takes years off my life, but at the Division I level, that’s not going to be the case this year.”

Goffstown got the ball back at its own 30 on the kickoff, and Moquin led the Grizzlies on a 15-play drive, twice converting on fourth down. On the drive, he was 6 of 9 for 61 yards and the game-winning touchdown.