FHS Falls to Dartmouth on Thanksgiving
FAIRHAVEN — You don’t always get to close out your high school football career with a dramatic, emotional victory, but Dartmouth’s seniors did just that Thursday morning 21-16 over Super Bowl bound Fairhaven. The Blue Devils had beaten Dartmouth at the last three Thanksgiving matchups, but this year was the Indians turn to pull out a dramatic victory.
Fairhaven entered the game on an eight-game run where the Blue Devils averaged over 40 points and were near perfect in their execution, but Dartmouth played physically and never backed down from the challenge.
After a 14-14 first half that was a true dead heat, Dartmouth’s defense took charge in the second half, ending three Fairhaven drives early with fumble recoveries in the driving rain at Alumni Stadium. The third fumble recovery came as Dartmouth led 21-14 with less than four minutes to go in the game, but Fairhaven had one more shot.
Needing a stop, Fairhaven forced back-to-back negative plays and left Dartmouth facing a punt from its own end zone. Dartmouth chose to have quarterback Jackson Hart take an intentional safety, making it 21-16 and moving it out to the 20 for a kickoff.
With less than three minutes in the game, the Blue Devils got it back needing a touchdown to win their fourth straight Thanksgiving matchup with Dartmouth. Fairhaven drove inside the red zone with under a minute left and had four shots for the walk-off score. But Dartmouth held, forcing an incompletion on the game’s final play with pressure from the defensive front.
Fairhaven's second touchdown of the game was scored by senior Justin Marques (see photo) who extended his Massachusetts State career touchdown record to an amazing 106.
For Fairhaven, it was a tough loss with a silver lining — the chance for its 15 seniors to end their careers on the highest of notes if they can win a second straight Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium. The Blue Devils play Hudson High School on Wednesday, December 4th at 8:00 PM for the Division 6 State Champion-ship. The game can be live streamed at www.patriots.com as wll as the Patriots official YouTube channel.