Mitch's moment: Wahconah senior scores in final moments of 34-0 win over Greylock

Posted Saturday, October 25, 2014 11:50 am

DALTON >> The game, a win over Mount Greylock, belonged to the Wahconah Regional High School football team. The night, though, belonged to Mitch Ellsworth.

In the best way they knew how, the Warriors gave their senior teammate, a manager-turned-player, a Senior Night gift like no other Friday night. Ellsworth took a handoff on the game's final play and scored from 8 yards out to cap a 34-0 victory.

"It was an awesome moment in my life," Ellsworth said after the win.

Ellsworth, a 17-year-old special needs student at Wahconah, was eventually carried off the field by his fellow seniors.

The touchdown fulfilled a life-long dream for Mitch, and meant just as much to his family in attendance — parents Brian and Debora, and sister Lindsey.

They'd hoped he would find the end zone earlier in the game, as the Warriors tried to get him a 2-point conversion following Nick Clayton's 38-yard TD pass to Cole Morrison in the third quarter. However, that run — despite a gallant push from Clayton — came up short.

So, with the Warriors looking at a first-and-goal from the 8 with just seconds left in the game, the teams lined up with Mitch in the backfield. He took the handoff from reserve QB Will Genaway and scampered in for the score past Greylock defenders as time expired, raising the ball in triumph to a group of joyous WRHS students behind the end zone.

"I saw an open hole that was big enough so that I could run straight through their defense," Ellsworth said of his "first and final regular-season touchdown."

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The cheers didn't subside for a while. Neither did Mitch's smile.

"He's been wanting to play for so long," Brian Ellsworth said. "The team and the school have just embraced him in an incredible way.

"I couldn't believe it. I was recording it with my camera. ... The whole place went ballistic."

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Mitch's mother said he had hoped to participate in the Warrior tradition of seniors being carried off the field. It was fitting, then, that the other seniors decided that moment would belong to Mitch alone.

"It's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him, I think," Debora Ellsworth said. "It's everything to him. It's brought him out of any kind of shyness. He just loves all his teammates like brothers. He's going to miss them like crazy after the year is over, so this is just an awesome way to go out."

Before the season ends, though, Ellsworth and the Warriors still have playoff pairings to figure out — and perhaps even a Berkshire County championship game. The Warriors cemented their spot in the upcoming Western Mass. Division IV draw, and have the top seed clinched. The latest projections, released Friday night by the Boston Herald, have Wahconah playing No. 4 seed South Hadley in the first round, with Agawam and Chicopee Comp meeting in the other sectional semifinal. That could very well change today, though, as the other three teams in the draw play regular-season finales — with Agawam playing tonight at Comp.

In Wahconah's win, Quinn Caesar rushed for 73 yards and a second-quarter touchdown. Clayton threw for 201 yards and two TDs, while Tyler Cataldi scored in the second quarter, part of a 65-yard rushing effort for him.

Still, WRHS coach Gary Campbell found plenty of things to fix. A big first-down pass from Clayton to Caesar late in the second quarter was wiped out by a block-in-the-back penalty. That was one of six penalties on the night for the Warriors.

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"I don't know how well, in certain situations, we blocked tonight," Campbell said. "I think we've got to go back to getting us better. Now it's a week just to get better. No longer are we looking toward someone; we're looking toward ourselves."

Wahconah's defense stifled the Mounties' running game. Patrick Storie carried the ball 11 times, but finished with no rushing yards. Greylock QB Brodie Altiere was 6 for 12 passing for 97 yards, 52 of those to Jesse Dilego.

Despite three trips into Warriors territory Friday, though, Greylock came away with nothing, turning the ball over on downs each time.

Campbell made a point, though, to salute the Mounties for their role in making the night a special one for Mitch Ellsworth.

"A lot of class on that sideline," he said. "A lot of class shown tonight by those guys and those coaches to make all this happen."

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Contact Matthew Sprague at (413) 496-6254.