Pilot hits 1,000 yards for season in win

Transcript Correspondent

WILLIAMSTOWN -- The defense of the McCann Tech football team showed up one quarter too late for Friday night's game against Mount Greylock.

Unfortunately for the Hornets, Mounties' tailback Jason Pilot showed up right on time.

Pilot hit the ground running in Greylock's season finale on Friday, ripping up the McCann defense for 115 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter. His efforts running the ball sparked his team to a 24-6 lead after 11 minutes of play and the Mounties never looked back, pulling away for a 46-14 win at John T. Allen Field.

Overall, the junior running back finished with 210 yards rushing on 31 carries. He also had two catches for 25 yards and scored on three 2-point conversions. Oh yeah; Pilot also became the first Greylock runner to break a 1,000 yards rushing in a season since David Kingsley last did it in 1996.

"We were just moving the ball consistently and they couldn't stop us," Pilot said. "The line was getting a good push. It was great to know I could get [1,000 yards] in only nine games."

While he quietly hoped Pilot could break the gold standard for running backs, Mounties head coach Shawn Flaherty said it wasn't the main objective heading into the game. What was important was putting the finishing touches on a turnaround season for Greylock. Since winning the Berkshire County championship in 2006, Flaherty's squad had gone just 3-17 over the last two years. With the win against the

"There was no talk about getting him up to the 1,000-yard mark," Flaherty said. "There was no agenda and I would never use that as any motivation or a speech tonight. We knew where the number was and we wanted to get that for him, but there was no agenda involved at all."

Pilot looked like he had his own agenda starting on the first drive of the game. With his line giving him open running lanes, he began to pick up big chunks of yards at a time. He seemed to get four or five yards past the line of scrimmage before being touched by a McCann defender, resulting in four rushing plays of 8 or more yards on the opening drive. Pilot took it in from 1 yard out for the game's first touchdown with 6:27 left in the first quarter and then scored the two-point conversion off a pass from Kent Hanson (66 yards rushing, 25 yards passing) to give the hosts a quick 8-0 lead.

McCann quickly struck back, though, scoring off an 80-yard kickoff return by Nagge Manns on the following play. Manns took the ball straight up the middle and broke through the pack before running into the open field. Hornets' quarterback Ben Raimer failed on his two-point conversion run, making the score 8-6.

Bob LeClair's team couldn't maintain the momentum from Manns' return, however, as Greylock scored on its next two possessions. A 38-yard run by Pilot on his team's second drive set up a two-yard touchdown plunge by senior fullback Kyle Quagliano before Hanson hooked up with Tyler Picard for the two-point conversion and a 16-6 lead.

McCann went three-and-out on its next series and failed to get a punt off, setting up Greylock at the Hornets' 18-yard line. It didn't take long for Pilot to find the end zone again as he scored four plays later on a one-yard run with 15 seconds left in the quarter. He walked in the two-point conversion to put his team up 24-6.

"Jason was on a 600-yard pace at that point," LeClair said. "We tried some things that we thought would work against Greylock's offense, but it just didn't pan out. We switched it up and went back to our standard defense and they seemed to work a lot better."

To their credit, the Hornets tightened things up and held the Mounties scoreless in both the second and third quarters. Greylock hurt itself with a pair of penalties on consecutive drives in the second quarter and didn't get its offense back on track until its first drive of the second half.

Looking to put the game away, Pilot took control of the drive by accounting for all but five yards on the 12-play, 59-yard drive. The end result was another two-yard score by Quagliano, who also added the two-point conversion to open up a 32-6 lead with 10:21 left in the game. Quagliano finished with 48 yards rushing on 11 carries and scored three touchdowns in his final game as a Mountie.

"That was great because the game seemed a lot closer with the kickoff they ran back," Pilot said. "It was good that we did that because it burned the whole third quarter up."

"I give McCann a lot of credit because I felt like they played real tough, but I feel like that's what our offense can do," Flaherty said. "If you're going to do the ground game, you're going to wear out teams. In the middle of the third quarter and definitely in the fourth quarter, if you've been establishing the run, you're banging up those guys and physically wearing them down."

The Hornets added another kickoff return touchdown late in the game when Chris Hilchey took a short kick and ran it back 60 yards up the left sideline. It was another bright spot for the McCann special teams on a night when the Hornets just couldn't get their offense going.

Manns was the leading rusher with 19 yards on two carries, while Raimer went just 3 for 12 with 39 yards through the air.

"The last four games we have just not performed very well offensively," LeClair said. "It's been really, really bad. We were averaging about 22 points a game in our first four games or so, but since then we just can't get anything going."