WILLIAMSTOWN -- It wasn’t overwhelming or dominant, but the Mount Greylock football team came up with exactly what it needed.
Ethan Ryan scored three touchdowns and Mount Greylock beat Drury 20-0 to win their 32 straight game and take sole possesion of Berkshire County’s unbeaten record.
"It’s a great feeling," Greylock senior Tyler Picard said. "You know, 32-0 in football is just incredible, you never see that. We have a great group of guys and I love this team. I’m just really excited for everyone."
Picard is the only member of the team to be a part of all 32 victories. He’s not the only one who knows how special the feat is, however. The win breaks Hoosac Valley’s record of 31 straight unbeaten games set from 1978 through 1981.
"32-0, wow. That’s a Berkshire County record I believe," Ryan said. "It’s unbelievable, it’s just amazing. I’m honestly speechless."
Of course, all 32 wins didn’t come this year so the coaching staff is trying to keep a focus on one game at a time. The win moves Greylock to 6-0 on the season.
"It’s nice, but we’re really focused on the league," Greylock coach Shawn Flaherty said. "We want to continue to have the success, but it’s not about keeping the streak alive. What we want is to play in the Berkshire County championship game, so we’ll just take it one game at a time. This is
Drury definitely didn’t make it easy to extend the streak, allowing Greylock to score only once in the first half -- a 4-yard run from Ryan. In the first half, the Blue Devils held the Mounties to just 77 yards and gained 79 themselves.
The Blue Devils didn’t allow themselves to make the mistakes they made in the last few games, fumbling only twice and losing just one.
"We didn’t have the big mistakes and we were wrapping up our tackles better this week than we were last week," Drury senior Alex Bush said. "That helped the most. Ethan is a tough runner and if you don’t wrap him up, he’ll break those long runs."
Drury also came with a few different looks for the Mounties. The defense switched formations throughout the game and sent extra pressure to stop Ryan and the other Mountie backs.
The extra pressure caused confusion on the line for a Mountie team that prides itself on blocking.
"They were sending a blitz up the middle that was really confusing our lineman," Ryan said. "They already play a 50-down and they were essentially playing a 60. They started playing [Jose] Melendez standing up as the nose guard. They were just running trick plays and our offense was confused."
Having six defensive lineman worked over the course of the first half and even into the second, but the Mounties were able to make adjustments that opened up holes for the running backs.
The Mounties carried the ball 28 times in the second half. Ryan had touchdown runs of 2 and 6 yards on his way to 137 second-half yards. He had a total of 194 in the game. Daivon Clement added 35 yards in the second half on seven carries and Hank Barrett had two runs for 17 yards.
"I think conditioning played a nice role in this one," Flaherty said. "It seemed like toward the end of the first [half] Drury might be a little bit tired. The guys really wanted to go at them, so were going to go with the ground game and we did that well in the half."
The Mounties also adjusted on defense after struggling to get much pressure into the back field in the first half. Greylock held Drury to just 62 second-half yards.
"In the first half, our defensive line was kind of getting pushed backed and they were opening up huge holes for the running backs," Picard said. "That was our main concern at half time and we talked about it, and we all stepped up in the second half."
To reach Sam Monroe, email smonroe@thetranscript.com.
On Twitter: NAT_DigitalSam
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