Big Red Football Rallies for a Fourth Quarter Comeback, with a 29-28 W

Boys’ varsity football had a tight victory this weekend over Cushing Academy, pushing their win streak to two. A 29-28 dogfight, the offense overcame some early struggles and pushed forward to clinch the victory while the defense held tight.Unfortunately, a pair of interceptions returned for touchdowns put the Exeter front at a disadvantage in the beginning of the game. Their offense was sputtering, but as the game went on and on, the offense looked more and more like what we saw versus Deerfield. Deep passes, cutting runs and deft running routes kept Cushing on their toes, and Big Red was able to close the gap with the Purple Penguins.One of the deciding factors in the game was what also decided the game against Loomis Chaffee. Fortunately, this time, things turned out in our favor. Captain Will Edwards nailed all four of his extra points as opposed to Cushing’s three, giving Exeter the tight edge to pull out a win.The defense was on fire again, being pushed into a tight corner late in the game, but they held tight. After shaking off the dust from a 13-point first quarter, Big Red played shutdown D, not letting up any more points for the rest of the game. As the offense came back on track, the defense made sure that the gap wasn’t increased at all, and playing well under pressure again, Exeter had key late-game stops to save the victory.“I think that was our best team game of the season,” senior and co-captain Brendan Rosseau said. “Every week it seems that we're only getting better and better as a team, which is encouraging as we head into some really hard games. What was special about the Cushing game was that the team had faith that we would win. Even when we were down by a few scores, there was not a doubt in my mind that we would win. We had done it before against Deerfield and I could feel that we were going to do it again. It came down to defense again that game, which I love because it puts my defensive group in a position to be on the field when it really matters. As a defense, we rose to the challenge like we have all year, allowing only 13 points, all of which were in the first quarter. When the game was on the line, we managed to come up with a big 4th down stop, which solidified a hard fought win for us.”Rolling off a two game win streak, what does a team do from there?“We are on to Avon,” said upper Jeff MacArthur.Indeed, Exeter takes on Avon Old Farms, a potent 4-2 team, this Saturday at 5:00. It’s the last home game of the season, and this game will set the tone going into E/a.Andover sits at 2-4 with a win over Cushing and Deerfield as well, and after they get crushed by Worchester this weekend, will be preparing for a very close E/a matchup.For now though, it’s time to take the end of the season one game at a time, and keep pushing forward for the third win.