South Shore Tech football tops Nashoba Valley to win small-school state vocational crown

WESTFORD – The South Shore Tech football team came a long way this season ... and wound up right back in the same place it started.

The Vikings enjoyed the second visit a lot more than the first one.

Battered by 22 points in a season-opening loss here, South Shore Tech returned to the scene of the Week 1 crime and made amends Thursday night, beating Nashoba Valley Tech in the rematch, 16-2, to win the MVADA Small-School State Voke Super Bowl.

"It feels amazing," said senior quarterback Jared Madden, whose 1-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter opened the scoring. "Revenge – I love that."

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"To be honest, I was a little worried coming back here," said junior running back Todd Egan, who iced the win with a 17-yard TD run with 4:38 remaining. "But our fans showed out, the sideline was pumping all 48 minutes. We had high energy. Our defense is so good. It's wild. Everything came together tonight."

It was South Shore's first voke crown since 2019. That title game also was a defensive gem – an 8-0 win over Old Colony.

"It felt very similar, where it almost was the first team to make a mistake was going to lose," South Shore coach Matt Doyle said. "Both teams have athletes, so no matter how good the defense is playing you're one play away from scoring. It was exactly like '19 where we had to keep holding them out because on any play they could bust one."

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Nashoba Valley (9-4) lost in the final for the second straight year. The 2021 championship game, held at Canton High, was a wild shootout that featured 955 combined yards of offense with Blue Hills pulling out a 52-51 win. This game was the polar opposite. What little offense there was belonged to South Shore (9-4), which rode to glory on TDs from its two stars, a very timely punt block that set up the first score and a suffocating defensive effort that limited the hosts to 72 yards of offense and forced two turnovers.

"We just couldn't move the football," said first-year Nashoba coach Danny Kelly, whose team was 2-for-8 on third down and 0-for-3 on fourth down. "Our defense played great. They were out there the whole game; you can't ask them to make that many stops. Compared to last year it was great defensive performance."

Nashoba senior running back Connor Buchmann had rushed for more than 1,300 yards coming in but managed just 30 yards on 10 carries. Junior quarterback Murphy Senecal, who had a big game in last year's final, could not pick up the slack as he completed just 4-of-14 passes for 34 yards and two interceptions.

South Shore ran nearly twice as many offensive plays (57-30) as the hosts.

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Of Buchmann, Doyle said: "He was a huge part of our game plan. I told Buchmann in the handshake line that we had a lot of respect for him. He's a heck of a football player. We really were game-planning heavily for him."

"It's great that we could stop the run," said junior cornerback Lucas Salvucci, who had one of the picks. (Egan had the other.) "Max Main helped out a lot. He's definitely the best linebacker I've ever played with. Our D-line stepped up; they had big games. Our DBs stepped up."

South Shore got all of its 236 yards of offense on the ground with Egan (21 carries for 95 yards), Madden (19-82) and Main (8-44) doing most of the damage. Madden did not complete any of his six passing attempts, although he did have a 29-yard TD throw to tight end Clifford Munroe in the final minute of the first half nullified by a penalty (ineligible man downfield) that Doyle vehemently protested and Madden called "really annoying."

The call kept the game scoreless at halftime.

"I'm glad it didn't impact the game," Doyle said of the play, "because that was a big one."

In a tight defensive battle, it figured that special teams would loom large, and that's ultimately what unlocked the game for South Shore. Owin Lemere, potentially with help from Lucas Jones and Tyler Holmes, blocked a punt to give South Shore a first down at the Nashoba 16-yard line with just under four minutes left in the third quarter.

"That was huge," Egan said. "We needed that so bad. That was clutch."

"We needed a short field," Doyle agreed. "I always say that special teams has to impact the game in a positive way."

Six plays after the block, South Shore faced third-and-goal from the 1. Madden jumped over the pile and extended the ball across the plane of the goal line for just a moment for the first points of the game.

"I knew they were cutting," Madden said, "so I just jumped and prayed for the best. And it worked."

Said Egan: "I know a couple of guys who go to Rockland (High) and last year P.J. Celestino jumped over the top (of the pile) to win the (Division 6) state championship at Gillette. That play just reminded me of him. That was great."

Madden rolled left on the 2-point conversion and hit Salvucci with the pass for an 8-0 lead. Salvucci also caught the 2-point pass after Egan's TD to make it 16-2. That one came on a version of the "Philly Special" in which Madden handed off to Riley Siereveld running left. Siereveld pitched to Egan on a reverse going back right. Egan then pulled up and threw to Salvucci, who was wide open in the right side of end zone.

"Coach (Allan) Burns put that play in in August," Doyle said. "He does a great job with them. It's great that they could connect with that."

In between those scores, Nashoba had its lone chance to get back into the game. Salvucci's pick left South Shore on its own 1-yard line, and Nashoba got a safety. Following the ensuing free kick, the hosts had a first down on the South Shore 40 with 10 minutes remaining and the deficit down to 8-2.

South Shore's defense rose up again, though, forcing a turnover on downs that really started with sophomore outside linebacker Brady Hofeman dropping Buchmann for a 6-yard loss on a first-down sweep to the right.

"I didn't exactly know where the ball was going," Hofeman said, "but I saw the hole and I went to go fill it and I made the play. I can thank Coach (Mike) Clark for that. He broke down (Nashoba's offense) for us."

Following the change of possession, South Shore marched 55 yards in six plays with Egan – Madden calls him "my favorite running back of all time" – sweeping left and cutting back for his TD run.

"Those blocks were great, especially Max (Main's), sealing that end and letting me cut it up," Egan said. "That was huge."

Egan's INT with 3:54 ended any hope of a miracle Nashoba comeback. Soon after it was time to party on the same field where so little had gone right almost three full months before.

"It was early, it was the first game of the season," Madden said of the 28-6 beatdown here in Week 1. "We knew we'd turn things around."

South Shore, which started the season 2-2, finished strong, winning seven of its last nine, including four straight to end the campaign.

"I don't want to say surprised," Doyle said of the turnaround, "because I knew they had it in them and I knew they would get better. I knew they had the ability. It just was a matter of: When are these guys going to finally put together a complete game in all three phases? And each week they just got better and better and better. It was good to see."

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: South Shore Tech wins small-school state voke bowl by beating Nashoba