Game Story: King Philip Football Makes History

All week long, King Philip Coach Brian Lee let his players know that all they could do was go into Franklin on Thanksgiving Day and take care of business, the rest of the pieces would fall where they may. 

The Warriors did just that, and ran all over the Panthers at Pisini Field to come away with a 42-21 win in their 52nd Thanksgiving Day matchup. 

The King Philip victory capped a season in which the Warriors went 9-1 (3-1 in the league), capturing a share of their first-ever Hockomock League Championship. It was a season no one expected KP to even have.

“There were low expectations at the beginning of the year, we were not ranked in the top 100,” Lee said. “We’ll have to see what happens with North. We can’t control that game; we can just enjoy what we have here.”

North Attleboro defeated Attleboro 14-7, giving the Warriors even more to celebrate as the Warriors will represent the Rex-Kelley Division of the Hockomock League in the playoffs against Duxbury.

KP running back Charles Ruffin was once again the main catalyst in the Warriors’ success against Franklin, gaining 196 yards on 24 carries, but he only found the end zone once. On this sunny Thursday morning, the KP senior was not finding his way into the end zone like he has done so many games before, but instead getting his team into position.

Following a 65-yard touchdown pass from Franklin’s Nick Zucco to Rhett Davis on the second play of game, King Philip went to work at wearing down the Panthers defense. The Warriors marched down the field, going 65 yards on seven plays with Ryan Dunn scoring from two yards out. KP’s Sam McDonald would run in the two-point conversion, and the Warriors were up 8-7 and would never look back.

Franklin would begin their next two possessions in King Philip territory, but neither time could capitalize. A missed field goal and a three and out would sent the Panthers back to the sideline, while the visitors would seize the opportunity on their next three possessions to go into the half with a commanding 28-7 lead.

KP would convert on a John Dillon 1-yard quarterback sneak, a 25-yard pass from Dillon to Joe Cochrane and a Ruffin 3-yard scamper to account for the first half scoring.

“We scored quickly to open the game, but we just didn’t sustain it from there. On our second drive we needed to punch it in there or get some points, but we didn’t and knew we were going to have a tough time holding up against these guys,” Franklin Coach Brad Sidwell said. “We were discouraged with the [Ruffin]
touchdown at the end of the half. We thought that if we could keep [the
score at 21-7], we could keep fighting.”

To make matters worse for the Panthers, Cochrane took the opening kick back some 80 yards, giving the Warriors an even bigger lead as only five seconds had ticked off the second-half clock.

Franklin would make the game a little more interesting as Zucco connected on two long touchdown passes to cut into the KP lead. Zucco would hit Rhett for his second touchdown of the day, this time from 34-yards out and would also connect with Gene Grella for a 64-yard pass. Unfortunately, smack dab in the middle of Franklin’s two scores was a fumble recovery by KP’s Brian Jones in the end zone.

“My defensive coordinator is not happy with the way that we played, but again we made enough plays to get it done. We made the plays when we needed to,” the KP coach said. “This win was huge for us. This program didn’t have a lot of pride in themselves, but getting them to work hard, believe and compete on a daily basis has brought us to where we are today.”