Abramson runs past Greenfield
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GREENFIELD - His teammates told him to keep his head up, but when Frontier Regional quarterback Eric Abramson got back on the field, he did the exact opposite.
The senior signal caller shook off a missed extra point kick that left his team trailing by one point early in the fourth quarter when he broke a 78-yard touchdown run on the very next possession to help a resilient Red Hawk squad take a 12-7 win over Greenfield at Veterans Memorial Field.
After narrowly missing an extra point wide right that left his team down 7-6 with 7 minutes, 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Abramson was picked up by his teammates on the sideline.
"After missing that kick everyone just told me to keep my head up and they were telling me, #We got this,'" Abramson said.
The encouragement paid off as Abramson broke up a pass attempt on third down on the Green Wave's next possession to force a punt and then went to work on offense.
Ed Mikhaylichenko's punt pinned the Frontier offense at its own 11-yard line with 4:13 remaining in the game.
A first down moved the Hawks out to the 21, and on a second-and-nine from the 22, Abramson came up with perhaps the most memorable play of his career.
The quarterback dropped back to pass on the play but was unable to find anyone open as the Wave secondary had all of Frontier's receivers bottled up. As the protection began to falter, Abramson looked to scramble, and a quick fake right turned into a sprint up the middle, right between a pair of Wave defensive linemen.
As Abramson accelerated, he came upon a Wave linebacker and lowered his head, running over the defender and then outracing the rest of the Greenfield defense for the long touchdown that turned out to be the game winner.
"I was going to run right, but didn't see a lane, kind of cut back, and ran someone over and broke a couple tackles," he said. "Then I just kept going until I got to the end zone."
"That one play killed us," Greenfield coach Mike Kuchieski said. "I thought we played great. Defensively, our kids played hard. We asked them to play hard and they did - they left it all on the field."
Greenfield (5-3 overall, 3-2 Intercounty) nearly came right back after falling behind 12-7 but the Red Hawks came up with a defensive stand. Dylan Curcio (eight carries, 50 yards) took the kickoff after the touchdown back to the Wave 49 and Greenfield moved to the Frontier 30, where it faced a fourth-and-one. On the fourth-down play, Wave back Zach Butynski (10 carries, 28 yards) took the handoff and tried to run left but was hit at the line of scrimmage and fell one foot shy of the first down.
"Giving up one touchdown is pretty acceptable in my book," Frontier coach Scott Dredge said of his defense. "Greenfield has a great passing game ... and we knew we had to play some really strong defense in the secondary and in that regard you just have to hope to bend but not break and we did a nice job tonight."
Neither team was able to crack the scoreboard in the first half.
Frontier was poised to receive the second-half kick, but Chuck St. Hilaire hit an onside kick that bounced up and was pounced on by Mikhaylichenko, giving the Wave possession on the Red Hawk 39. On fourth-and-four from the 33, Wave quarterback Shawn Parsons (7-for-17, 87 yards) hit Garrett McHugh (two catches, 20 yards) with an 11-yard completion for the first down.
On the very next play, Parsons lofted a touchdown-scoring pass to Adam Wroblewski (three catches, 41 yards) from 22 yards out and Mikhaylichenko tacked on the extra point to give Greenfield a 7-0 lead 2:17 into the second half.
Frontier marched back down to the Wave 15, but they kept Frontier from scoring in the red zone when Abramson's pass to Chris Bowman (three catches, 24 yards) on fourth-and-six from the 15 was broken up.
That was the second time in the game Greenfield kept the Hawks from scoring in the red zone.
The first came late in the second quarter when Greenfield tried a fake punt but Mikhaylichenko fumbled and Nick Pickunka returned it for Frontier to the Wave 12. Greenfield stopped the Hawks at the 4 and took over, running the clock out in the half.
But the third trip to the red zone proved to be the charm for Frontier, as it began a drive with under two minutes remaining in the third quarter from the Wave 47 and drove it down to the 3, where the Hawks faced a fourth-and-goal.
Abramson took the snap from the shotgun and rushed straight up the middle, absorbing a hit at the goal line and falling in for Frontier's first touchdown.
Abramson finished with 107 yards rushing on nine carries and went 6-for-13 passing for 55 yards. Austin Watroba added 39 yards rushing on 17 carries.
