BROCKTON – Well, that didn’t go as planned in Boxer Country.
Barnstable came to town and spoiled the head coaching debut for Jermaine Wiggins with a 49-14 rout over Brockton at a packed Rocky Marciano Stadium.
Aiden Kundel was spectacular under center and finished 16-of-23 for 284 yards, throwing three TDs while adding two rushing touchdowns and 54 yards on the ground. The senior quarterback had a successful two-point conversion as the cherry on the Red Hawks’ winning sundae.
“We play like a family, and we just kept switching things up and a lot of motions, a lot of shifts, just a lot of stuff to keep them on their toes,” said Kundel. “We have we have a lot of plays where they give me free range to pick what I want to do, and I trust in my brothers, and we got it done.”
In the first half alone, Kundel had a hand in all the Red Hawks’ scores. Kundel was a perfect 5-of-5 on the first drive of the game for 85 yards, which finished with a wide-open post route from Kyle Cogswell in the middle of the end zone.
Kundel added his second passing touchdown on the next series to Chevy Shakespeare on a 19-yard curl route without a Brockton defender to be found.
Brockton tried to keep things close as freshman quarterback Jayden Campbell scored up the middle on a quarterback keeper out of the playbook of Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach Nick Sirianni to cut the deficit to 13-7, but Kundel was just getting started.
Kundel added the hat trick through the air with a 53-yard fly route for Shakespeare’s second touchdown of the game and the Barnstable wagon was red hot heading into the half with a 28-7 lead. The Red Hawks had a 282-94 disparity in total offense for the first two quarters.
Wiggins made no excuses for the way his team played. Wiggins stressed that his team had opportunities, it was only game one of the season, but wouldn’t lay the blame on an inexperienced roster.
“There were a lot of mental mistakes, you know they’re a good football team, take nothing away from Barnstable. You make that many mistakes and they took advantage of the opportunities. We made a lot of mistakes, made a lot of mental errors and that’s what led to guys running free all over the field,” said Wiggins. “I think that … we just, we just made mistakes. These kids had opportunities and we made mistakes. You know we’ll do a better job of coaching them up. It’s on us, we gotta make sure we get them doing the right things and understanding their assignments so we as coaches will do a better job.”
The second half was no picnic for the Boxers either as Barnstable scored on a 12-play drive capped by Kundel’s fifth touchdown – a seven-yard scamper on a broken play in the backfield.
On the very first play from scrimmage for the Boxers, Tajardo France took an interception 44 yards to the house and the Red Hawks were sitting comfortably with a 42-7 lead with 6:48 left in the third quarter. France added a rushing touchdown on the next series to put the game to bed in the final seconds of the third quarter.
“We just said, you know, we’re going to prepare as hard as we can for every situation, and we went over everything, and the kids just continue to work hard and they’re playing for each other,” said Barnstable head coach Ross Jatkola. “We have a ton of respect for everyone we play. (Brockton) is going to be a very, very good football team, they have some really good pieces, and they start a freshman at quarterback who we have a ton of respect for, but we didn’t expect (the outcome) but they have some really good pieces to start their program.”
