by Dakota Antelman
The Hawks fell to the Holy Name Napoleons 36-19 in a muddy Morgan Bowl on Friday night. The at times driving rain plagued the Hawks all night as Hudson struggled to match the relentless run game of Holy Name.
By the end of the night, Holy Name had run for 347 yards against the Hawks, scoring all 36 of their points via the run game. Holy Name senior Kevin Mensah led the charge. He scored two touchdowns in the first half alone, shedding tacklers on long runs up the middle of the field. Hudson struggled to stop Mensah and his teammate Thomas Lech, who added his own pair of touchdowns in the first and second halves.
The rain limited Holy Name to only three pass attempts all night, none of which were completed. In contrast, Hudson defied pregame predictions that pegged them to exclusively run the ball, instead calling aggressive passing plays down the field. The passing game became even more prevalent as the game went on and Holy Name’s lead increased.
The second half was in fact punctuated by a 41-yard catch-and-run by senior Rocco Malloy in the fourth quarter. The play, which went down as Hudson’s longest pass of the day, made possible a touchdown run by Jesse Nemerowicz three plays later.
Nemerowicz himself continued what has been a season built on consistency. The senior took the ball 16 times vs Holy Name, rushing for 90 yards and two of three Hawk touchdowns. Behind him, Armel Conyers went against many of the statistical trends he had set for himself in the first three games of the year.
As Conyers passed more, he ran less. The junior finished the day with 62 passing yards, but only 29 rushing yards.
The loss is Hudson’s third straight after they started the year with two strong wins on the road. Their record now standing at 2-3, Hudson sits in fifth place in the Midland League B. They are on the road next week vs Groton-Dunstable but come home later this month for their Homecoming game vs. North-Middlesex.
