BOW – Bow football knows what it wants to do: ground and pound on offense, create turnovers on defense. Both worked to near perfection on Saturday in the No. 3 Falcons’ 32-0 win over No. 6 Hanover (6-4) in the D-II football quarterfinals.
Bow’s (9-1) defense forced five turnovers, one of which was a fumble returned by Canyon Batchelder for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to cap off the Falcons’ dominant performance. Saturday was Bow’s seventh straight win, a stretch during which the Falcons have not allowed more than 10 points in a game.
“This team has recognized that all of them are one integral part of a defensive chain,” Bow head coach Paul Cohen said. “And they allowed themselves to come together in such a way that they’re able to control opposing offenses overall.”
It was Bow’s offense that set the tone initially, with a touchdown reception from tight end Ryan McCabe on the Falcons’ third play of their first possession. Then the defense asserted itself with an interception from Logan Gordon on Hanover’s next drive.
In the second quarter, the Bears seemed to have momentum shift to their side. They blocked a 29-yard field goal try from Bow, and then attempted a fourth-and-one from the Bow 45-yard line. But i nstead of capitalizing on the opportunity, Hanover quarterback Tanner Longmoore threw another interception, this one to Owen Guertin.
Guertin subsequently punched in a 4-yard rushing TD with 12 seconds left in the half. The PAT was blocked, but the Falcons carried a 13-0 lead to the break.
Bow continued its dominance in the third quarter, with Hollis Jones first recovering a Hanover fumble near midfield and shortly after adding to its lead with a 24-yard TD run to make it 19-0 (two-point try failed). In the final quarter, Falcon QB Owen Walton ran in a 2-yard TD off a bootleg and Batchelder added the exclamation point with a fumble return TD with 39 seconds left in regulation.
“We spent a lot of time in preparation for this, especially because playoff football is so unforgiving,” Cohen said. “We stressed that to them at the end of last week’s win, that you’re not assured of anything in postseason. You get one shot, and if you lose, it’s over. Fortunately for us, everything went our way overall.”
Now the Falcons will prepare to take on No. 2 Pelham (10-0) on the road next Saturday. While they played strong complimentary football for most of their quarterfinal matchup, Cohen knows there’s still more work to do.
“Each week that goes by, the grading rubric gets a lot harsher, a lot stricter, and there’s more on the line,” he said. “But for the moment, this team can relish the fact that they won their last game on our field.”