By Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com

For the second time in as many weeks the outcome of a St. Thomas Aquinas High School football game was decided by a failed two-point-conversion attempt.

St. Thomas trailed Hanover by a point when holder Chris Melanson was stopped short of the goal line on a fake extra-point attempt in overtime Saturday. Melanson was tackled just inside the 1-yard line, which gave Hanover a 7-6 victory.

"One play to win? I'd do it any time," St. Thomas coach Rod Wotton said. "Always do it. Always have done it.

"There was no guarantee we were going to make one. We wanted to surprise them."

After four quarters of scoreless play, each team took possession on the opposing team's 10-yard line in overtime. Hanover had the ball first and scored on third down when freshman quarterback Sam Carney completed a 3-yard pass to Syracuse-bound Carl Cutler for a touchdown. Will Curry made the point-after kick, which gave the Marauders a 7-0 lead.

St. Thomas scored on second down, when Melanson, the team's quarterback, connected with senior Sam Foster for a 7-yard TD pass. Then Melanson tried to give St. Thomas the win when he took the snap and swept around left end.

"They're known for their fakes," Hanover coach Mike Ivanoski said. "No one can question Rod. He's won more games than he's lost in those situations."

Last weekend St. Thomas beat Stevens, 7-6, when Stevens failed to convert a two-point conversion attempt with less than a minute to play.

The loss left Wotton with 322 career victories. If St. Thomas beats Fall Mountain next weekend Wottom will pass Armond Columbo for most career victories by a New England high school football coach. Columbo coached at Archbishop Williams in Braintree, Mass., and at Brockton (Mass.) High School.

Wotton's career record is 322-68-3. He earned most of those wins while he was the head coach at Marshwood High School in Eliot, Maine, where his teams were 220-33-1 from 1966 to 1992.

"Hanover didn't do anything were weren't prepared for," Wotton said. "They just played tough."

The victory raised Hanover's Division IV record to 7-1. The Marauders will be the No. 2 seed for the Division IV playoffs and will be at home for the semifinals.

St. Thomas dropped to 5-3.

"We wanted to go to overtime and take our chances there," Ivanoski said. "We had more chance of winning this game going 10 yards than we did going 80."