ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
The Bridgewater-Raynham coach said the better team won, but he was still upset with a dubious decision that had him boiling hot in the freezing cold.
“Believe me, Gloucester is much better than us,” Buron said. “Gloucester deserves to win, but the referees certainly didn’t get their stories straight on that call.”
The call in question came late in the second quarter with the Trojans trailing, 19-7. Quarterback Mike Connolly found Kyle Reid inside the 10-yard line, Reid caught the ball, put two feet on the ground and was stripped, the ball going out of bounds.
The side judge closest to the play ruled it a catch and a fumble, but after a lengthy conference, which carried on for nearly five minutes after the call, the ruling was overturned. Both of the officials who joined the initial judge were much farther away, one coming from across the sideline, 60 yards away from the play.
“The guy on the sideline on our side made the call; he still believes it was a catch,” Buron said, adding that he received three different explanations from the head official as to why the call was overturned, none of which he found satisfactory. “I said (to the initial judge), ‘well how do you let them overrule you.’
“When I asked the officials, they said, ‘that’s not what we’re talking about, that’s not what we’re talking about,’ but then they overruled it. To me there’s no question, there shouldn’t be any question.”
With big games come big venues, and in this case, Buron believes the stadium Jumbotron may have played a role in the referee’s decision-making. There is no replay in high school football like there is in the pros, so any video evidence seen after the initial ruling would normally be rendered moot.
“I firmly believe they looked up at that replay,” Buron said.
The call was crucial, and the Trojans would have had a chance to cut their deficit to one possession, but Buron didn’t pin the whole game on that play.
“We couldn’t stop (Gloucester running back Conor Ressel),” Buron said, calling Ressel, ‘the best football player (he had) seen in a long time.’ “Offensively, we couldn’t get anything going really, couple dropped balls here and there; maybe if we caught those balls it would be a different story.”
The heavy snow didn’t help the Trojans’ passing game, with the normally sure hands of Kevin Bumpus and Neil Harrington clearly affected. The opening series told much of the tale, after two dropped passes, the Trojans dropped the snap for the punt, starting Gloucester off inside the 6-yard line.
Connolly finished 6-of-17 passing despite rarely missing a target. His strong arm and on-the-money throws were belied by the frozen hands of his receivers.
Falling behind quickly, an inability to run the ball on the Fishermen’s defense and being forced to pass in bad weather made an awful mess for Bridgewater-Raynham.
“The weather’s equal for both teams,” Buron said. “They’re just a little bit better than us.”
Still, the clouds that poured snow onto the field at Gillette Stadium did have a silver lining. The season was full of thrills, from the unexpected success to the coin flip that sent them into the playoffs to reaching a Super Bowl, the Trojans overachieved all year. By definition, that’s more than you can ask for.
“Nobody expected us to be here in the preseason,” said Buron. “If you told me we were going to go 9-2 in the season, play Xaverian triple overtime and end with Gillette, I would’ve told you you were crazy.”
No comments:
Post a Comment