By Danielle Achin
A big bounce-back game from the Rams as they dominated UMass Dartmouth 45-21 Sept. 18 at Bowditch Field during Framingham State’s Homecoming weekend.
After a year away from the sport, the Framingham State University Football team opened the 2021 season with major losses against Brockport and St. John Fisher, leaving them 0-2 overall.
Before the game, a sign had been hung in the athletic gym hallway predicting the outcome of the game – the outcome being the Rams would lose.
“I look at that and that motivates me anytime someone thinks we’re going to lose. We just got to come out and prove them wrong,” said junior and quarterback Nicolas Goffredo from Hyde Park, Massachusetts.
UMass Dartmouth won the coin toss making a 57-yard touchdown, gaining a 7-0 lead making it first on the board.
“We weren’t really worried about it. We know we just have to take it one play at a time, so we all just kept our heads up and knew coming out the next drive we weren’t going to let that mistake happen again,” freshman Tishay Johnson Jr. from Windsor, Connecticut said. “We did what we had to do. We got the turnovers and everything.”
With just under four minutes remaining in the quarter, the Rams recovered a fumble scoring a 42-yard touchdown by sophomore Cole Moretti from Lynnfield Massachusetts – tying the game 7-7 after freshman Matthew Farley from Middleboro Massachusetts scored the extra point.
The Rams scored three more touchdowns in the second and third quarter pushing the lead to 38-7.
“When we got turnovers, offense capitalized on it and they would score, so just all around it was a big team effort and that’s what we needed because those first two games we didn’t have that,” said freshman Dylan DeWolfe from Marion, Massachusetts.
In the final quarter of the game, UMass Dartmouth gave their last push against Framingham State, completing a 20-yard touchdown just 12 seconds in.
This didn’t shake the Rams and in the final few minutes of the game, Goffredo completed a 22-yard touchdown run for the final score 45-21.
DeWolfe said,“If we just keep doing our job every play we’re going to win. We’re gonna put points up.
Defense will do what they got to do. Offense will do what they got to do.”
Johnson Jr. added, “We just got to keep our foot on the gas, keep practicing everyday, keep going 100% here and just perform, listen to what the coaches are telling us to do and we’ll be all set.”
“We had a great week of practice and it showed. I expected nothing less from them,” Goffredo said.
Following the game, Goffredo received the 2021 Calder Award, which is given annually to the MVP of the Homecoming Day game in memory of former Ram, John Calder and Farley had been named the Special Teams Player of the Week.