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Davis leads
Centaurs to
heart-pounding
win
On the final play of the first half Sept. 10, the Centaurs found themselves down by a point to Windham in Willimantic.
Offensive coordinator Connor Elliott asked head coach Sean Saucier what he wanted to do. The Centaurs were 34 yards away from the end zone.
“I told him that we had to do something,” Saucier said.
Elliott put it in senior quarterback Ethan Davis’ hands.
Davis moved around in the pocket, ducking and dodging Windham defensive players while looking downfield and waiting for receiver Carter Saracina to get open.
Davis saw the opening and fired a strike for the 34-yard touchdown pass that gave the Centaurs a 1-point halftime lead.
If Woodstock Academy needed a big play, he delivered, and in the process, led the Centaurs to a season-opening 40-27 win over the Whippets.
Davis completed 14 of 21 passes for 144 yards and rushed for 153 more including touchdown runs of 2, 37, 11 and 1-yard.
He also never panicked.
The fourth quarter especially was a see-saw battle between the two.
The Whippets scored with four seconds left in the third quarter to take a 20-13 lead.
But less than four minutes into the final quarter, Davis found some daylight and raced 37 yards for a score to tie the game at 20.
The Academy’s defense then held and forced Windham to punt. A bad snap sailed over the punter’s head and the Centaurs recovered at the Whippets’ 22-yard line.
A penalty moved them back 5 yards but it still only took Davis three carries, the last going 11 yards, to put the Centaurs ahead, 26-20.
The Whippets scored with 3:53 left and got the extra point to go up, 27-26.
Davis again answered as he engineered a 10-play, 63-yard drive mixing in the run with the pass to get it down to the one where he bulled in for what proved to be the game-winning score with 47 seconds left.
Davis also got the two-point conversion to make it a seven-point game.
But the quarterback’s night was not over. Forced to play linebacker because of injuries, Davis crashed the center of the Windham line and then pulled back into coverage.
Windham quarterback Zach Robinson Smey never saw him.
“It was another tremendous athletic play. He spied the quarterback’s eyes and I don’t think (the Windham quarterback) knew (Davis) was there,” Saucier said.
He tipped Robinson-Smey’s pass, caught it on then run and had only green grass in front of him for a 25-yard pick-six that socked the win away.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
.