'I feel so good for our seniors.' Framingham ends four-year losing streak to Natick
FRAMINGHAM – The game didn’t start out pretty: a fumbled exchange between Matheus Silva and Ben Lincoln. But the ending? Oh, so sweet.
Silva, Framingham’s quarterback, ran 18 yards on third down for the game-deciding touchdown with 38 seconds left to lift the Flyers to a 15-13 Thanksgiving Day victory over Natick, their first win in the series since 2018 and first at home since 2010.
Natick had gone ahead on Teddy Ferrucci’s rushing touchdown in the third quarter before the Flyers (6-5) responded. Two holding penalties and an intentional grounding infraction on Framingham stalled the final drive at times, but Silva’s screen pass to Lincoln on third-and-18 to convert a first down got the march going.
“We walked into the locker room before the game and said, ‘well, this is it man.’ How do we want to go out?” said Framingham senior captain Henry Goldberg. “I don’t think there could have been a better way to leave Framingham football.”
"If I'm being honest with you, I've had this game marked on my calendar since second grade," Lincoln said. "All the adversity we went through last season. ... This was the best way to seal it off."
The Flyers finished 1-10 last year, David Wright’s first as head coach.
“It feels awesome. I feel so good for our seniors,” he said. “In their four years at Framingham High School, they’ve had three head coaches, four offensive systems and four defensive systems. They’ve had so much change, so much uncertainty. It’s good to see them persevere through that and push through and end their football career at Framingham High on a positive note.”
Framingham’s offense was shut down in the first half and the Redhawks (6-5) scored the only touchdown when Jesse Gagliardi threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Arnold Kawere with 2 minutes, 54 seconds left in the second quarter.
The Flyers pulled even when Silva hit junior Michael Pusateri on a slant in the third quarter and went ahead, 9-7, on a safety when Angel Colon, Chris Nunez and Goldberg teamed up for a tackle in the end zone.
Ferrucci’s 2-yard touchdown with just over seven minutes remaining put the Redhawks in front before the Flyers responded with their most important drive of the season.
“We walked out on the field and we knew this is what we’ve worked for since July 5th,” Goldberg said.
Despite the penalties, Goldberg said the team refused to get down.
“Every time we got back in the huddle, we were like, man next play,” he said. “Reset, focus on the next one, do your job, do your job well and if we pull through, we’re going to get out of here with a win. We just kept keeping each other up.”
Natick leads the series that dates to 1904 by an 80-34-5 margin. But the 119th meeting ended up in Framingham’s favor.
“We have the same four expectations every game that we tell the players,” Wright said. “Game expectation number three is: at some point during the game, winning is going to seem impossible, but it’s not. And game expectation number four is: the way we play, expect to win in the fourth quarter.”
"That's all that was going through my mind," Lincoln said of that final expectation. "We all knew we were going to win. We were going to do what it took - and that's what happened."
The Flyers made a big jump after consecutive 1-10 seasons. The goal now is to keep soaring.
“We’re in season two of this coaching staff,” Wright said. “Season two, we’re 6-5, a winning record; did not make the playoffs, but we beat our rivals. So, our expectation for season three is to continue to build on that.”
Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached attdumas@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimDumas.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham ends four-year Thanksgiving losing streak to Natick, 15-13
