H.S. FOOTBALL: Oliver Ames rallies over Taunton

By Chris McDaniel

It was a tale of two halves for the Oliver Ames football team on Saturday against visiting Taunton.

Oliver Ames went into halftime trailing, 21-6, only to score 16 unanswered points in the second half on its way to a 22-21 victory.

For Oliver Ames quarterback Nick Cidado (15-for-27 for 179 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions), it would be more accurate to say his tale was of three bad quarters and one great one.

?Nick played an unbelievable late half of this game,? said Oliver Ames coach Jim Artz. ?All of a sudden, when we needed him, he really flipped a switch.?

Trailing 21-14 in the fourth quarter, Oliver Ames got the ball at its own 19 and drove 81 yards for a touchdown. Cidado capped the drive by completing a 36-yard touchdown pass to senior Greg Cummings, who finished with 10 catches for 83 yards, to make the score 21-20 with 2:35 remaining, leaving Artz in an unenviable position whether or not to go for two and the lead.

?I wasn?t sold on [the two-point conversion],? said Artz. ?But the kids took it as a challenge and said ?Let?s win it right now.??

Said Taunton coach Chris Greding: ?His line was fired up and they were pushing us around. I would have done the same thing.?

Oliver Ames (5-1) took the lead on the two-point conversion by handing the ball to junior Matt Berksza, who ran right up the middle to make the score 22-21.

OA scored all 16 of its second-half points in the fourth quarter.

Twice the visitors (1-5) were burned by the same play. Just minutes before Cummings? 36-yard touchdown reception, OA ran the same play, with the pass going to Franklin Holgate for a 29-yard gain that put the ball two yards shy of the end zone. Holgate, a freshman, was called up for the game.

?We kept drilling them with the hitch, which is a quick 5-yard pass,? said Cidado. ?I just pumped that, sent the [receiver] right behind and just threw it over the defender and it worked finally.?

On the next play, Joey Tepper finished the drive with a a 2-yard touchdown to make the score 21-12. Cidado completed a two-point conversion to Cummings to make the score 21-14 with 8:38 left.

?They just played a perfect second half,? said Greding. ?We got a little complacent on our side. We had a two-touchdown lead going up against a very good football team.??

The first half was thoroughly dominated by Taunton, which jumped to a 14-0 lead, sucking all the momentum out of the home crowd.

Quarterback Kyle Maderia scored on a 1-yard sneak with just under two minutes left in the first quarter.

After the kickoff, Cidado was intercepted by Jamal Williams at the Oliver Ames? 30-yard line. Williams, who finished with 56 yards on 13 carries, capped the drive with a 12-yard rushing touchdown.

Oliver Ames answered on its ensuing drive with a 47-yard screen pass from Cidado to senior St. Clair Ryan. Ryan finished the day with with 131 total yards on 22 touches.

?He?s such a talented kid,? said Artz of Ryan, ?He?s a physical force who runs much bigger than he is.?

A missed kick on the extra point made the score 14-6 in favor of the visitors.

The game appeared to headed for a blowout when junior Gerald Cortijo returned a punt 45-yards for a touchdown, giving Taunton a 21-6 lead.

The loss appears to be another disappointing growing pain for Taunton.

?We?re just trying to learn how to win, we?ve come leaps and bounds from where we were,? said Greding. ?We got to learn how to close out games.?

Junior Domingo Jenkins had a strong game for the visitors, rushing for 125 yards on 17 carries.

Source: http://www.wickedlocal.com/easton/sports/x493670228/H-S-FOOTBALL-Oliver-Ames-rallies-over-Taunton

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