D-S Football Rolls Over Northeast Metro Tech [VIDEO]

Matt Heinlein was a man on a mission Friday night.

The Raiders captain scored four rushing touchdowns against two-time defending Div. 4A champions Northeast Metro Tech at Frothingham Field Friday night to lead the Raiders to a 27-14 victory.

Heinlein had 15 carries for 174 yards rushing and also had two receptions for 17 yards. On the defensive side of the ball Heinlein made 8 tackles, three that went for a loss.

“Matt does a lot for us. He runs the ball, he can throw the ball, he can catch the ball, he makes tackles, he’s a big part of our kicking game and he’s just very gutsy,” said D-S Head Coach Joey Schotland, who tallied his first victory as head coach of the Raiders Friday night.

The Raiders defense was strong against a powerful two-pronged running attack led by Bobby Novello and Jonathan Hughes of the Knights.

“They have defensive ends who came and crashed on us, which is something we can adjust to. We didn’t make adjustments early on,” said Northeast Head Coach Don Heres.

Heres gave credit to D-S for playing as tough as they did.

“Those kids played their butts off. They played tough, they played physical, they never quit and their style, they’re quick and they exploited our weakness,” Heres said.

D-S led 13-6 at the half.

At the beginning of the third quarter, the Knights were pounding the ball up the middle, gaining big chunks of yardage on the ground.

Then with Northeast at the Dover-Sherborn 14 yard line, Knight quarterback David Mahoney threw an interception in the endzone to defensive back Jake Wirth who returned the pick 75 yards before being tackled at the Northeast 25 yard line.

The Raiders went on to score on a 19 yard rush from Heinlein, his third touchdown of the game, to push the score to 19-6 after a missed PAT.

At that point Northeast was digging themselves a hole that would be hard to get out of.

The Knights comeback efforts were hampered by a lack of a passing attack on offense.

“I can’t get the ball and throw a quick touchdown pass. That’s not what we do. Once we fall behind like that we’re in trouble,” Heres said.

“I’d rather sit and pound it out with a physical team that goes between the tackles but, they’re a spread team and they’re quick and they did run between the tackles. Which, to be honest with you, it shocked me. Because I thought we were real good up front and obviously I was wrong,” said Heres.

Schotland said that he wanted to play Northeast because of their track record and because he would like his program to be as successful as the Knights have been the past two years.

“We’ve got some tough players and they rose to the challenge tonight,” Schotland said. “We told the guys all week long that we’re going to have to raise our game and play at that level and we did tonight.”

Northeast is now 1-1 on the season.

The Raiders are also 1-1 and will be away at Holliston next Friday.