WRENTHAM, Mass. - Down 14-12, it looked like King Philip had finally caught a break at the end of the third quarter.
Marshfield quarterback Jack Masterson had his pass go off his receiver's hands and the ball fell to Mark Glebus with just seconds left in the third. The Warriors had just scored two drives prior and were prepping to march down for the go-ahead touchdown.
But on the first play, the ball bobbled in the process of the snap and the ball was loose.
Marshfield recovered and two plays into the fourth quarter, found the end zone to go up 20-12, a score they would hold onto for the rest of the D2 South Final.
The botched snap was just one of a handful of uncharacteristic mistakes from King Philip, who suffered their first loss of the season.
"We made too many mistakes against a good team," King Philip head coach Brian Lee said. "Too many things - we lined up wrong a few times. We made some rookie mistakes that we hadn't made up to this point and that's probably due to the pressure the opponent was putting on."
Marshfield got off to a perfect start. After receiving the opening kickoff, it took just four plays to find the end zone. On first down at the Warriors' 41-yard line, Masterson dumped it off to Neal Parry on a screen and Parry broke through three tackles and raced up the left sideline all the way to the end zone. The extra point was wide to make it 6-0.
It didn't get any better for King Philip. Three plays into their first drive, Marshfield's Danny Dalton just jumped in front of a John DeLuca throw for an interception. Six plays later, Masterson handed off to Frank Canatoso on a jet sweep and he raced up field and in. Masterson connected with Dalton for the two-point conversion to make it 14-0.
The Warriors went back to the Mark Glebus on the follow drive to get back into the game. Glebus ran the ball on 12 of KP's 13 plays on the drive and accounted for 58 of the 60 yards on mostly rushes to the left. He capped it with a three yard rush. The extra point was wide but KP cut the lead to 14-6.
KP's defense got back into gear, forcing two straight punts from the Rams. The second led to King Philip getting all the way down to the Rams' 5-yard line. A negative rush and a false start pushed KP back to the 12-yard line and on the final two plays of the half. both of DeLuca's passes were knocked down by Rams' defenders.
However, KP made up for leaving those points on the board. On the first drive of the second half, King Philip drove 68 yards on just six plays. Glebus took five of those plays, totaling 65 of the yards and capped it off with a seven yard touchdown. On the two point conversion, the Rams sacked DeLuca before he was able to get a throw off.
Marshfield's offense stalled on its first drive of the third and punted, but got the ball back after their defense forced a punt from KP.
"Our defense coordinator Matt Wassel just does a great job," Lee said. "I knew they weren't going to score 55 points on us, I knew we'd be in there. We knew it would be three scores that we needed to get. We almost had Glebus pop a couple but they did a good job of not giving up the big play. When we don't get the big play, we've struggled a bit on offense."
With the third quarter winding down, Marshfield was faced with third down at the KP 45. Masteron dropped back and fired but the ball hit off a receiver's hands and into the air. That's where Glebus hauled in the interception. But just as quickly as the momentum favored KP, the botched snap recovered by Mark Benson swung it ten-fold the other way.
Masterson his Dalton up the middle for 30 yards on a great catch and then Catanoso took the sweep left to the left and got around the edge and up the field for the score.
""That's the way we've been running it all year long," Marshfield head coach Lou Silva said of mixing up the offense with sweeps, runs, QB options and passing. "KP did an exceptional job of stopping up the middle, we couldn't run up the middle. Frank Catanoso, getting to the outside, no one's really been able to stop him from getting outside."
The Warriors got the ball back with 5:20 left but were forced to punt. They got the ball back via a Craig Kelleher interception with just over two minutes left. One play and a penalty later, KP was looking at a 97 yard drive with 1:58. KP got all the way out to midfield as DeLuca connected with Lukas Cepkauskas, Kelleher and Glebus to get to the 50 yard line with 25 seconds left. But with Marshfield in basically prevent defense, Benson was able to step in front of a throw and intercept it to ice the game.
King Philip (9-1) was led by Glebus, who had 189 yards on 35 carries and two touchdowns.
"We haven't seen a team run this well as [King Philip] in a bunch of years," Silva said. "What a great job they do running the damn ball. Not anytime during the game did I feel safe. Not until right now."
"We make mistakes, we do some things that are weird," Lee said. "When you take a look at us in pregame, we're not much too look at but they have tremendous heart and they give everything they have and I'm tremendously proud of how much effort and pride they played with."
The Warriors will be back in action on Thanksgiving when they host Franklin.
Ryan Lanigan can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @R_Lanigan.