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The Terriers high percentage passing game was effective in the first half with Fritz finding split end Jeff Courneen on numerous occasions, but Courneen and the Terriers offense was shut down after a long drive to open the second half which yielded no points for the Terriers.
Rocky Hill started on its own 40-yard line and drove down to the Northwest 25, taking almost seven minutes off the clock only to come up short on two incomplete passes, including a 4th down try to Courneen over the middle to keep the drive alive.
On the exchange of downs, Northwest drove the ball to midfield and punted. The kick by Ari Barnett rolled to the Terriers 6-yard line with 1:01 left in the third quarter. A short run for negative yardage preceded the big interception by Sarnese.
Northwest began the game with its longest drive of the contest going from their own 31 to the Rocky Hill goal before the Terriers defense stiffened. Northwest quarterback Tim Bourdon opened the Indians' first offensive series with a 43-yard scramble from the shotgun that moved the ball to the Rocky Hill 26. Six plays later, the Indians tried to pass it into the end zone from the five but Bourdon couldn't connect with Barnett with coverage by the Terriers' Matt McKinnon.
The Terriers (3-6) took the ball and tried to work their way out of trouble but Fritz was sacked for a 9-yard loss and a safety with 4:34 left in the first quarter by Adam Gooley and a 2-0 Northwest lead.
Northwest (5-4) took the punt after the safety to the Rocky Hill 25, but three straight passes were ineffective and Rocky Hill took over at the 32-yard line with just over four minutes remaining in the first quarter. Three plays later the Terriers' Brent Towle took off on a reverse from wingback T.J. Green and went 57 yards down the left sideline. The Chris Tyler kick made it 7-2.
Late in the first half, the Terriers had another chance to score when Fritz lofted a ball to Courneen in the end zone, an effective tactic for the junior wide receiver most of the night, but this time a Northwest defender came down with it ending the Rocky Hill threat.
The third interception came after a long punt return by Green that gave the Terriers good field position at the Northwest 25. Green took the Northwest punt just outside his own 20 broke a tackle at the 30 and advanced the ball well into Northwest territory. Two plays later, looking for a receiver in the right flat, Fritz threw the ball into the arms of linebacker DeShaun Walker for Northwest who ran all the way down to the Rocky Hill 8-yard line before being tracked down by Towle.
Two plays later, Bourdon hit Oraine Howell on a look-in pattern for 11 yards. The conversion made it 24-7.
"They had two big interceptions," Terriers head coach Dave Coyne said. "And that just took the game away from us, those two big interceptions, but we got to do a better job blocking and tackling and that's what it all comes down to and that's where we're losing the ballgames. The interceptions, they hurt us, but the key to the game was our blocking and our tackling which wasn't equal to theirs."
The trenches were not kind to the Hill as they allowed Bourdon to roam the field with ease from the Northwest shotgun formation.
"I'm proud of the kids, we played real hard and so did they," Northwest head coach Mike Tyler said. "It was a battle right to the end, we made some plays and that was the difference. We had a couple of big plays, it was a real hard fought battle but I'm real proud of our boys, they played hard."
