ARLINGTON – In a day and age where running the ball is considered ‘old school,’ Stoneham takes pride in being a true throwback offense.
It was on full display at Arlington High School on Friday night as the Spartans racked up over 400 yards on the ground. Kilty had four touchdowns, Logan Tran had two and Dylan Brown added another during the rout of the Spy Ponders.
The win moves Stoneham to 2-0 on the young season while Arlington drops to 2-1.
“We work hard on it. It’s what we do,” said Stoneham head coach Bob Almieda. “We’re a physical team…that score didn’t indicate…(Arlington) is a heck of a football team. I think they’re a very dangerous team. It wasn’t over. It was never over until the very end. They gave us some stuff we hadn’t seen before…tonight it was a little bit of the bend, but don’t break that much. We were fortunate. We saw that they were really tough up front…but, we felt like if we could get into the secondary we’d have a chance and that’s what happened.
“When you commit 10 guys to the ball, you’re going to get long runs like that and we have good backs. I thought our line…(Arlington) was a little bigger than us and I thought our line hung tough the whole way.”
Stoneham started the game with the ball and fumbled four plays in with Arlington’s Emile Lemire recovering at the Spartans’ 34. Four plays after that, the Spy Ponders returned the favor with Derek Brown recovering. From that point on, the Stoneham offense was unstoppable.
Tran ripped off a 78 yard run to get the scoring going two snaps after the fumble with Chris Paolini adding his first of seven PAT’s on the night. On The Spy Ponders’ ensuing drive, the hosts reached Stoneham’s 20, but a tackle from Ben Bruno on 4th-&-1 forced a turnover on downs.
Stoneham got a 4th-&-2 fake punt conversion on its next drive from Kilty before Tran broke off another long TD run, this time from 53 yards out.
With 2:24 to play in the half, the Spartans pushed it to 21-0 on a 49 yard touchdown run just three plays after forcing a punt following a 10-play Arlington drive that stalled out. The Spy Ponders did get a little momentum back before the half though. A 38 yard pass form quarterback Jack Zambardino to Peter Harrison soon set up a four yard TD run for Ari Forest on 3rd-&-goal. Zambardino added the PAT to make it 21-7 at the half.
“All we’re really looking to do is beat up that defense,” said Kilty when asked about the ground attack. “It’s a tough offense. It’s hard to stop. No one likes to run it. No one wants to run it, but we love it…dirty yards. That’s what we call it. We don’t care if it’s one yard, 10 yards…dirty yards. It’s hard, it’s tough, it’s painful, but if we keep doing it over and over again, it’s successful.”
That momentum didn’t last as Arlington opened the third quarter with a five play drive then had to punt. Just two plays later, Kilty rumbled 74 yards to the house to push the lead back to 28-7. Arlington responded with a nice nine-play drive that ended with another Forest touchdown run, this time from 10 yards out.
A massive, clock-killing 14-play drive that started with 3:14 left in the third ended with a 21 yard touchdown run for Kilty with 6:10 left in the fourth. To their credit, the Spy Ponders responded again, but they had a little bit of luck.
A screen pass to Forest was fumbled, but big offensive lineman Will Tassmer scooped it up and rumbled for about 50 yards with his best Dan Connolly impression, bringing the ball down to the Stoneham 13. Zambardino hit Harrison for a 13 yard TD moments later with 4:36 remaining.
It took the Spartans three plays to score again as Kilty sprinted 49 yards for his third touchdown. After an Arlington turnover on downs, one more 48 yard TD run for Kilty with 1:14 to go capped the scoring for the Spartans.
“I give full credit to our line,” added Tran. “That’s all I’ve got to say. Our line, they do it.”
