St. Thomas rolls past Sanborn
Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com
KINGSTON - You can expect to see at least two things from a typical St. Thomas Aquinas High School football game:
1) The game will feature a lot of points, and 2) St. Thomas will do most of the scoring.
That's certainly how things unfolded Saturday night in Kingston, where St. Thomas spoiled Homecoming by posting a 52-0 victory over Sanborn.
"They have a lot of weapons and they're tough to defend," Sanborn coach Mike Drouin said. "They're a good team and defensively we're not there yet. We gotta get better defensively if we want to stop people."
St. Thomas led 10-0 after one quarter, 24-0 at halftime and 38-0 entering the fourth. The Saints have scored at least 44 points in four of their five victories.
"It was impressive because our kids played really hard tonight," St. Thomas coach Eric Cumba said. "We're starting to compete better."
No one had a better night than junior running back Ryan Monette, who took full advantage of good blocking to rush for 264 yards on 13 carries. Monette scored touchdowns on runs of 99, 73 and 11 yards.
"Ryan Monette ran the hardest I've seen him run," Cumba said. "He was good in our first game, but he was 10 times better tonight than he was then."
Senior Tylor Buckley caught two touchdown passes. He scored the game's first TD on a 41-yard pass, and hauled in a 71-yard TD pass from quarterback Scott Munroe in the second quarter.
Running time was used after Monette scored third TD with 6:08 left in the third quarter.
"We can't answer their speed," Drouin said. "We couldn't stop [Monette] tonight."
Senior running back David Rogers (1-yard run) and sophomore running back Jake Geppert (17 run) scored the fourth-quarter touchdowns.
The rest of the scoring came form sophomore placekicker Hayden Middleton, who made a 38-yard field goal and seven point-after kicks.
St. Thomas, which was coming off a 16-13 victory over Somersworth, improved to 5-0 with the victory. Sanborn dropped to 1-4. The Indians have allowed at least 41 points in three of their four losses.
Making the task even tougher for Sanborn was the fact that the Indians were down to their No. 3 quarterback on the depth chart. Instead of using sophomore John Morris, Sanborn went to a Wildcat formation and had fullback Glen Smith take most of the snaps.
"Our No. 1 and No. 2 are injured and we just didn't feel comfortable going with the young kid," Drouin said. "We scrambled with our offense and I thought the offense really played well against this good team. Unfortunately the defensive woes continue."
The Indians received a strong game from wide receiver Dylan Spence, who was shifted to running back this week. Spence rushed for 131 yards on 23 carries.
"He had a great game," Drouin said. "He's a competitor. I thought Glen Smith did a great job back there too."
St. Thomas, the only unbeaten team in Division V, will play a night game against Stevens at St. Thomas next Saturday. It will be the first home game played at St. Thomas in the program's history.
Drouin said St. Thomas had established itself as the heavy favorite in Division V this season.
"Without a doubt," he said. "Without a doubt. Somersworth is a good team too, but this team is the best. Then there's a cluster of teams that are pretty close."
SATURDAY'S SCORES
Windham 44, Bishop Brady 0
Kearsarge 26, Campbell 20
Franklin 36, Farmington 0
Trinity 16, Monadnock 7
Salome 34, Nashua North 14
Hollis-Brookline 45, Pelham 7
Goffstown 11, Pembroke 0
Pinkerton 41, Londonderry 6
St. Thomas 52, Sanborn 0
Epping-Newmarket 32, Winnisquam 12
Inter-Lakes 37, Gilford 8
