WORCESTER — It is no different than the fall. Same went for this spring. And if they played high school football in the summer and winter, it would probably be identical: Bo MacCormack can tote the dang rock with the best of them.
Behind MacCormack’s standout performance, the Boston Junkyard Dogs defeated the Northern Knights, 19-16, in the championship of The League.
With its just-completed third year, The League offers full-padded football in the spring, something you cannot get anywhere else in Massachusetts.
And while everyone got to showcase their stuff, it was once again MacCormack — the sophomore from BB&N — who stole the show. He finished with 232 yards and a 40-yard touchdown on 25 carries. Unofficially, 200 of those yards came in the second half as the Dogs, made up mostly of BB&N players, rallied from a 9-0 halftime deficit.
The Knights did well to bottle MacCormack up in the first half, but it’s not if he will bust out, but when.
“It’s kind of like, you have to keep pushing, applying pressure, and then eventually something will break through,” MacCormack said. “Once it breaks through, you have to apply all the pressure, and the floodgates will (break). We just kept hitting it up the middle, then went outside, and eventually things broke.”
The Dogs took over in the second half and marched right downfield. MacCormack had 50 yards on the drive, and helped set up Henry Machnik’s 9-yard touchdown pass to tight end Brett Elliott to bring the Dogs to within 9-6.
A Dogs fumble was recovered by the Knights’ Cam Worster, and his team capitalized. Tiger An of Windham (NH) rumbled in for an 11-yard touchdown, and the Knights took a 16-6 lead. An finished with 112 yards on 18 carries.
MacCormack struck with a 65-yard run deep into Northern territory, and Machnik again hit Elliott, this time for a 5-yard touchdown as the Dogs sliced the deficit to 16-13.
“Outside linebackers were playing outside most of the day today, so I kind of tried to just get equal pad level with them to get equal leverage,” Elliott said. “Make my move there, get outside to make those two plays.”
Dogs linebacker Tyler Blum recovered a Knights fumble, and two plays later, in the fourth quarter, MacCormack burst through the middle of the Knights’ line for a 40-yard touchdown as Boston grabbed its first — and final — lead.
Blum then made a fourth-down stop inside the Dogs’ 5-yard line, and AJ Azuakolam made an interception to seal it late.
In the first half, Peyton Harmony booted a 22-yard field goal for the Knights in the second quarter. Then, An caught a 22-yard screen pass for a touchdown from North Andover’s Drew Fitzgerald (146 yards passing).
But the Knights could not contain MacCormack and the Dogs in the second half.