Winnisquam shuts out Fall Mountain to win second straight D4 football title (video)
LACONIA – The Winnisquam Regional High School football team needed a big play early Saturday in the Division IV championship game against Fall Mountain.
The Bears hadn’t been able to do much on offense against the Wildcats multiple fronts, and although the game was scoreless, Fall Mountain had been able to move the ball against Winnisquam’s defense.
Late in the first quarter, the top-seeded Bears got the momentum shift they needed, when the No. 3 Wildcats’ Izaak Westover lost a fumble and ball bounced right to Gunner Horman.
The senior scooped up the fumble and raced 63 yards for the score, and on Winnisquam’s next offensive play, Phil Nichols hit Garret Mango for a 55-yard touchdown. That was all the scoring the Bears needed, as they won their second straight D4 title with a 20-0 win over Fall Mountain at Bank of NH Stadium in Laconia.
“We were strong and prepared,” Winnisquam coach Derek Hunt said. “We had a great week of practice and it showed. We knew they were going to be tough and it was going to be a tough game. You can’t go by the second game of the season. We knew it was going to be a dogfight.”
The Bears won the regular-season meeting between the two teams, 33-14 on Sept. 14, but since then, the Wildcats had won six in a row and only allowed 14 points over that stretch.
“We watched film a lot on them,” Mango said. “Fall Mountain is a really good team, and if you look at all the plays we made, they were really big. Without those, we’re not winning this game.”
Nichols and Mango connected for two long touchdown passes that accounted for 91 of Winnisquam’s 215 yards. The Bears (9-0) finished with just 19 yards on the ground after Fall Mountain sacked Nichols five times.
One of those was a strip sack by Alex Flynn late in the first half that was recovered by Westover at Winnisquam’s 27-yard line. It was the best field position of the night for Fall Mountain (6-3) to that point, and the Wildcats were able to move to the Bears’ 15.
But on first down, Luke Gay was picked off by Mango with 11.4 seconds left in the half to end the threat and send the game into the half with Winnisquam up 14-0.
“We don’t have that experience,” Fall Mountain coach Orion Binney said. “They had three long touchdowns and that was the difference in the game. You make that one mistake and that’s it. I’m just proud of how they never quit.
“There was that period where they were on the 5 and it was 14-0. They could have just folded and let (Winnisquam) take over. They hung tough, dug deep and stuffed them and moved them back. We stayed in the game.”
After the first Nichols-to-Mango touchdown made it 14-0 with 10:41 left in the first half, Winnisquam forced Fall Mountain to punt. On the play, Isaiah Silva bobbled the snap and was forced to try to run for the first down. Instead, he was stopped for a 1-yard loss and the Bears took over at the Wildcats’ 35.
Six plays later, Nichols hit Cooper French for a 16-yard gain to the 5-yard line. But on first down, Andre Cormier fumbled and lost six yards, and Nichols was sacked by Tyler Swain for a loss of nine.
Winnisquam was called for a delay of game, setting up third-and-goal from the 25, and the Bears got eight yards back, but an incompletion on fourth down gave the Wildcats the ball back at their 17.
But Winnisquam’s defense came up with a stop, as the Bears did all night, forcing a punt. Fall Mountain finished the game with five turnovers, punted four times and turned the ball over on downs three times.
“They’re not big and I thought we’d have the size advantage, but they’re so tough, they’re so fast, and they’re so disciplined,” Binney said. “That’s their thing, they put you in a hole like that and make you work your way out. Credit to them, they never cracked. We moved the ball on them from time to time, but the 14-0 hole was tough.”
Westover finished with 71 yards rushing on 24 carries, but Gay struggled, completing just 4 of 18 passes for 42 yards with two interceptions and a fumble lost.
Nichols was 12 of 20 for 196 yards and the two touchdowns for Mango, while Horman had five catches for 65 yards.
“Unreal,” Hunt said of Mango. “He’s kind of in the shadows because they see Gunnar (Horman), and Garret is kind of under the radar. He showed you (Saturday) what he can do and he’s done that all season for us. It’s been incredible.”
