By John Orrell, Contributing Writer
Shrewsbury / Foxborough – They entered this year’s Division 2 Super Bowl billed as perhaps the most dominant team spread across all divisions; an offensive and defensive juggernaut seeking to leave their mark upon any opponent standing in their way. So to almost no one’s surprise, when the dust settled on their impressive 40-7 romp over Shrewsbury High, there would be few doubters remaining standing that would challenge those prognosticators point of view.
Duxbury High (12-1) gave the Colonials (9-4) all they could handle at Gillette Stadium Dec. 3 exploding for 20 unanswered second-half points to pull away from the matchup that was just a two-touchdown game at halftime.
Quarterback Bobby Maimaron and explosive Harvard University-bound receiver Ryan Reagan connected for 155 yards in the air and three touchdowns for the Green Dragons, but the big story was the South champions overwhelming pass rush that drove Shrewsbury quarterback Drew Campanale into fits at times with intense pressure nearly every time he dropped back to pass. The crippling attack resulted in the sophomore QB being held to just 122 passing yards on the day.
Duxbury got on the board first spoiling a productive early drive that saw Campanale march his team deep into Dragon territory before a 62-yard interception by cornerback Riley Bergstrom took the ball to the Shrewsbury three-yard line. Maimaron then lofted a fourth-and-goal floater that Reagan reeled in in the left side of the end zone for the game’s first score.
Shrewsbury’s only points of the day came late in the second quarter. Down 14-0, Campanale went to work finding receiver Chris Campbell open with a 46-yard connection that advanced the ball inside the Duxbury red zone. Five successive running plays from fifteen yards out yielded no results before Campanale rolled right and hooked up once more on a three-yard toss into the end zone to Campbell that closed the gap to 14-7.
Duxbury wasted little time answering back with Maimaron scrambling through would-be Shrewsbury tacklers for a 22-yard TD run along the left sideline that upped the score to 20-7 at the halftime break. The late tally and some costly Shrewsbury penalties hurt, but still the Colonials hopes were alive.
The remaining 20 minutes belonged to the Dragons with four-year starter Maimaron, the state record holder for TD completions (122 career, 41 on the season), capping his high school career on the highest of notes leading his team for three successive touchdowns to record the Super Bowl victory.
Player-of-the-Game awards went to Reagan for the Dragons and Campanale for the Colonials. As a sophomore, the young quarterback has a bright future ahead with a nucleus of this year’s team going forward, although some key losses to graduation will be difficult to absorb.
The Dragons piled up more than 40 points in each of their previous 11 wins with an offense featuring a number of college-bound seniors seeking to go out on the highest of notes before beginning a new chapter in their football careers starting in the fall.
Shrewsbury entered the Super Bowl with a huge dose of confidence having crushed Westfield High, 42-12, in state semifinal action. That victory followed convincing wins over St. John’s High, 34-28, and Algonquin Regional, 21-14, in the CMass championship. The Colonials also knocked off Thanksgiving Day rival Wachusett Regional, 14-7, in its holiday contest for their sixth-straight win, but the overwhelming Duxbury squad was a much different story.
Duxbury head coach Dave Maimaron chose to rest the majority of his starters on Thanksgiving Day so as to focus on the team’s bid for a state championship. The move to not suit up for the gridiron holiday tradition has been a controversial one for coaches throughout the state since the MIAA implemented a revised playoff format a few years ago. Duxbury fell to Marshfield 53-0 on Thanksgiving Day.