Ipswich gains school-record 7th shutout along with title
QUINCY -- George Foster is now irrelevant. And he couldn't be happier.
As Ted Flaherty shook all the postgame glad hands as if his own hadn't been sweating for the past hour and a half, Foster approached the Ipswich coach long after the Tigers had wrapped up their school-record seventh shutout of the season and first Super Bowl title since 1991.
The Tigers forced Cape Cod Tech/Harwich into four turnovers (three interceptions, one fumble) and left James Hamilton , the running back Flaherty said was "always an arm tackle away from breaking a big play," with barely enough rushing yards to cross midfield in a 7-0 win in the Division 3A championship.
A member of the 1969 Tiger squad that held six teams scoreless, Foster felt it best to tell Flaherty, "Congratulations, Coach."
Flaherty, buzzing, but still gracious, laughed and said "Thanks, sorry about the record."
"Hey," Foster said. "You've got the record and you've got the championship."
The Tigers' defense has been as miserly as Scrooge for the last three months. The Tigers hadn't given up a touchdown since the third quarter of a Nov. 10 game against Amesbury, when the Indians' Jason Wheeler broke a 95-yarder, and it finished the season with more than 130 minutes of shutout football.
The Tigers sprinkled doughnuts all over their schedule, allowing an average of 6.8 points, giving up more than two touchdowns just once, and shutting the door on everyone else. "It got to the point where they were disappointed if they gave up a first down," Flaherty said.
Maybe it was the traffic on Route 3A, but it took more than half the game for Tiger disappointment to make it to Veteran s Memorial Stadium. The Crusaders didn't muster a first down until 7:35 of the third quarter. By then, Ipswich was up a touchdown, thanks to running back Steve Phaneuf , whose 37-yard touchdown run in the second quarter highlighted a performance in which he dug his cleats into the Crusaders for 172 yards on 24 carries, scoring once.
"We pride ourselves on our defense," said Phaneuf, who was cash all season (28 touchdowns) but fumbled twice and then dropped a pass as the Tigers worked the two-minute drill to end the first half. "We made some costly mistakes, but we knew if we kept it together we could win it."
"We come into every game looking for a shutout," said defensive back Ryan Gagnon.
They got it by putting the pinch on Hamilton, and pressuring his brother, sophomore quarterback Mike Hamilton , into mistakes. Scrambling to the right side on a third and 11 in the second quarter, Mike Hamilton had his first pass picked off by Gagnon along the Ipswich sideline.
Then, with his team riding the momentum of a 48-yard halfback option from James Hamilton to senior wideout Jose Ortiz , Mike Hamilton had a screen pass intercepted in the flats by Tiger defensive back Alex Lampropoulos .
"I saw his brother, then I saw his eyes," said Lampropoulos. "I didn't know he was going to hang it so much. Then I just had it in my hands."
A pick in the fourth quarter by Kevin Michael put an end to a 1-for-4, three-interception daymare for the younger Hamilton, while Ipswich never gave his older brother a chance to get started. Between team speed and a strategy to stuff nine guys in the box as if it was a
"All season they kept hearing about all the great teams in the past," Flaherty said. "It's not that they were tired of it, but they wanted to be a part of it themselves."
