Star QBs on full display as Duxbury High football defeats Middleboro in quarterfinals
DUXBURY – Friday’s Division 4 quarterfinal between the Middleboro and Duxbury High football teams featured two of the best quarterbacks in the area (and probably the entire state).
Middleboro’s Jacob Briggs and Duxbury’s Matt Festa lived up to the billing.
Those quarterbacks combined to tally 694 yards of offense and 11 touchdowns. Ultimately, it was Festa’s Dragons who prevailed in a 62-41 win. Top-seeded Duxbury (9-0) advances to the state semifinal to play against No. 4 Holliston (9-1).
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“They’re both pretty damn good,” said Middleboro coach Pat Kingman of the QBs.
“Both guys played unbelievable,” said Duxbury coach Matt Landolfi.
Briggs gave the Sachems leads of 7-0 and 14-7 early by capping drives of 14 and 10 plays with TD runs. After falling behind 14-7, Festa’s squad responded with 27 consecutive points.
The Dragons took their first lead late in the first half, 21-14, after Festa led an eight-play, 60-yard scoring drive. Chris Walsh made an adjustment on a slightly underthown ball on the drive to haul in a 25-yard catch. Festa finished the drive with a 1-yard TD run on third down.
Duxbury’s lead quickly ballooned in the second half. Festa threw TDs of 44 and 37 yards to Walsh (four catches, 115 yards) on the Dragons' first two offensive plays of the second half to push the lead to 34-14. Both throws were deep down the field and perfectly dropped into Walsh’s hands.
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Middleboro never cut the deficit to less than two scores in the second half.
“Our whole thought was if it’s going to be a shootout, it’s not the game we want to be in,” said Kingman. “That’s just not our game.”
Festa led the Dragons on touchdown drives on their first six possessions of the game. Walsh kickstarted the sixth scoring drive with a 45-yard kick return (following a 49-yard TD pass from Briggs to Justin Tullish on a wheel route) and Festa finished it with a 2-yard TD run to make it 41-20 with 3:25 left in the third quarter.
“Festa, to me, he’s a really special football player,” said Landolfi. “I think he could play at a high level next year, just a special kid. He’s a competitor.”
The Sachems and Briggs had an impressive answer of their own. Briggs threw a 58-yard TD pass to Nate Goodine to cut the deficit to 41-27, but the Dragons once again pulled away with consecutive scores. Collin Quinlan turned a jet sweep into a 43-yard TD run and Trevor Jones intercepted a pass and returned it 62 yards for a score.
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Festa finished the day 16-of-20 passing for 251 yards and three TDs. He added 14 carries for 67 yards and three TDs on the ground.
“It’s not just the passing, it’s the toughness and making the line calls and all the responsibilities of putting the guys in the right spots,” said Landolfi of Festa. “He’s got a great future.”
Briggs was 25-of-40 passing for 292 yards with three TDs and two interceptions. He also ran for 84 yards and two TDs.
“Briggs has probably been under the radar all year long,” Kingman. “He just doesn’t get the notoriety of the other quarterbacks because we don’t chuck it as much and he runs it a little bit more. Tough kid, he played to the last second tonight.”
“Tough kid, threw great balls, he’s a great runner,” said Landolfi of Briggs. “He’s 6-4, 230, he’s another kid that could play at the next level. He’s just a really tough football player, it’s fun watching him play.
“We schemed to stop him and we didn’t.”
Midway through the fourth quarter, Briggs threw a 14-yard TD pass in the back of the end zone to a diving Tullish (5 catches, 93 yards, two TDs) to cut the deficit to 55-34.
Andrew Hunt iced the win with a TD run in the fourth quarter. Middleboro sophomore Caiden Carriuolo returned the ensuing kick 95 yards for a score.
In the second quarter, Middleboro was leading 14-7 and looked to have a defensive stop. But on fourth-and-4 from its own 42, Duxbury lined up to punt. The Dragons snapped the ball to upback Finn Carley and he picked up the first down on a 17-yard run. That extended the drive and allowed Festa to throw a 23-yard TD pass to Adam Barr on a screen pass.
“Just watching film all week and seeing what they were doing,” said Landolfi of the call. “We try to make something for every special teams. We saw it and we thought it would work, so we thought we would get them and luckily it did.”
The Sachems, who are 7-3, won the South Shore League Sullivan Division title with a comeback victory over Rockland.
“Obviously, I’m a little bit biased, but I think that we’re a really good football program,” said Kingman. “Any time we get our quarterback and running back back for multiple years, we usually have a pretty good mix going on. We’re a good football team.
“The culture is there. I think we are a football town.”
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Duxbury High football advances to Final Four with win over Middleboro
