SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP — It was typical Lakeside-Jefferson football — all except the lack of a swampy field.

Keeping to the tradition of a growing rivalry, the Dragons survived lousy weather and another chess match with Jefferson to claim their seventh-straight victory over the Falcons, 21-6, at mudless Lakeside Stadium on Friday night.

Lakeside (2-2), which had won four of the previous six games in the series by a touchdown or less — usually under extremely muddy conditions at either Guarnieri Field or Falcon Pride Stadium, broke open yet another nailbiter with the Falcons by scoring two touchdowns in the final 2:39 of the fourth quarter.

Though no longer a key tilt in the race for the Northeastern Conference, Friday’s battle had lost none of its importance or luster for the Dragons.

“Hey, a win’s a win,” Lakeside coach Van McWreath said. “We knew this is a big game for us. This is still a rivalry for us and it’s competitive and it’s always going to be competitive. The kids had been looking forward to this game all season. It’s always nice to get wins against the county teams, and this was a nice win.”

Behind its mammoth offensive line and the legs of senior Kevin McCaleb (career-high 177 yards, 2 TDs) and junior Jordan Sandidge (137 yards, 1 TD), Lakeside stuck to the ground and saw it pay off to the tune of 317 yards rushing (16.7 yards per attempt) on Jefferson’s defense.

“Our line did a great job of blocking down all night,” Kevin McCaleb said. “They kept opening up holes for us. Guys like Greg (Juhola), Jose (Rivera), Levi (Halsey), A.J. (Welker), Kieran (Jones), Chad (Budy), Devon (Crockett), Nick (Mullen), Kyle (Vance) and Shawn (Parsons) all did a great job for us.”

“The line did wonderful,” Sandidge said. “They were keying on me the entire night and Kevin was able



to break a few long ones. The line got us our 3.5 yards a carry tonight. That’s all that matters.”

Midway through the second quarter Jefferson (1-3) looked like it might finally end its streak of futility against the Dragons. On a third-and-22 play from its own 32 with 5:04 left in the half, Jefferson quarterback Johnathan Wilson found wideout Ryan Morford for a 68-yard scoring strike for a 6-0 Jefferson lead. Morford caught the ball at his own 44, broke several tackles and sprinted the final 56 yards for the score.

But McCaleb answered with an even bigger play on Lakeside’s following possession. On the first play of the new series, McCaleb took the handoff from James Christian at his own 35, darted to his right and sprinted untouched 65 yards to the end zone to tie the game. Juan Aguinaga’s PAT then gave the Dragons a 7-6 edge with just five seconds ticked off the game clock since Morford’s score.

McCaleb provided the knockout punch with 43-yard score with 2:49 left in the game. Sandidge then added a 39-yard score a minute later for the final difference.

Jefferson coach Jimmy Henson believed the game was won on those three plays.

“We didn’t make the plays to win, but we did make some plays,” he said. “We have got to make some plays in those instances. We only made three mistakes all night long and, unfortunately, they scored on all three of them.”

Jefferson would continue to trail by one for most of the second half. Its best scoring chance came on its opening possession of the second half. The Falcons drove from their own 22 to the Lakeside four behind solid running from Tyler Wright (28 carries, 116 yards) and Kyle Hass (9 carries, 40 yards). But on a fourth-and-three play, Wright was hit in the backfield for a loss and the turnover. The Falcons would never get that close again.

“You have to hand it to Jefferson,” McWreath said. “Everything we did they had an answer for. They played a great first half of football. They tackled well, they ran their offense well. It was a close game that both teams wanted to win. They did a great job of keeping it a close game. We just had a couple of balls bounce our way.”

“They had the athletes who could take it to the house on any given play and they did,” Henson said. “We were playing without Nick Potts and Johnny Namey tonight. That didn’t help. We made three big mistakes and they made us pay.”