Cape Tech Captures First Football Championship In Program History

NEW BEDFORD – First-seed South Shore led early in the fourth quarter of the vocational playoffs small school title game Dec. 3 as seventh-seed Cape Cod Tech moved downfield in search of a score that would potentially deliver their first football championship in program history.

The drive culminated in a fourth-and-4 in South Shore territory. A Crusaders team that had rallied around a message of finishing strong — and lost four of their first five games this season but entered the championship game winners of eight straight  — had to finish one more time.

“All options open, right coach?” offensive playcaller George Castaneda asked at that point on the sideline, as head coach Calvin Castillias recalled. He answered, “Coach, we got to finish.”

“Great, well I just called halfback pass,” Castaneda replied.

“Well, it's about damn time,” Castillias said.

The offense ran the trick play — one they’d been practicing for weeks but had kept in their back pocket for the perfect moment. Junior quarterback Daniel Handville tossed the ball to junior running back Thomas Allen, the play looking like another run to the outside. Then Allen threw the ball deep to sophomore wide receiver Jordyn Wilson for the touchdown that put the Crusaders back ahead and clinched a 30-24 win to take the MVADA small title for Cape Tech’s first football championship.

“We made history,” Allen said. “Never been done before. It's surreal. We've had so many years of negative records, not making playoffs, getting first rounded and now it's just, we're here. We did it.”

The meeting with the South Shore Vikings (7-6) was a rematch. They had beaten Cape Tech 27-6 in week 5, a loss that dropped the Crusaders to 1-4. Cape Tech (9-4) didn’t lose another game all year. The poetry of having to get through South Shore for the vocational trophy — the symmetry of the bookends to their remarkable turnaround — wasn’t lost on the Crusaders.

“I'm not going to lie, I was down after the first four losses, and not until I stepped on this field did I really understand how monumental this was for us,” Handville said.

South Shore, as a further matter, had won all five of their previous vocational championship appearances. On the way to their sixth, the first-seed Vikings comfortably won two home games. Seventh-seed Cape Tech had never even reached the title game. The Crusaders chewed up several hundred miles and at least a dozen hours roadtripping to take down the second and third seeds (Franklin County Tech and Pathfinder) in the bracket.

“I wanted revenge,” Allen said. “I like an underdog game. We lost to them before. No one expected us to win, and I think that's what drives us every game, being the underdogs. No one thinks we're supposed to be here.”

After forcing a Cape Tech three-and-out to open the game, South Shore deployed an unrelenting run-heavy attack from their double wing offense, scoring first on a 34-yard touchdown rush by senior Johnny Burgio. Cape Tech went three-and-out again, at which point South Shore attempted a halfback pass of their own that probably would have gone all the way for a score had the ball not been overthrown.

As they exhibited all season, Cape Tech seemed to thrive in situations where it felt like the walls were starting to creep closer. In the second quarter, another Crusaders drive looked to be fizzling after a false start put them back near their own end zone, until Handville found Allen for an 85-yard touchdown that (after a 2-point conversion by junior Chaz Thomas) tied the game 8-8.

The Cape Tech defense proceeded to turn South Shore over on downs at the Crusaders’ own 11-yard line, then Handville hit junior Anthony Bartlett across the middle for another massive touchdown pass, this one for 87 yards. Handville, in sum, threw back-to-back passes for two touchdowns and a combined 172 yards. Cape Tech led 14-8 at half, having already scored well more than the 6 they had managed in their previous meeting with the Vikings eight weeks prior.

“We were down in the dumps,” Thomas said of that earlier matchup. “We were at our lowest. We never gave up. We kept pushing at practice. Everyone was showing up, giving it all their effort, and that's the reason we're here today.”

The second half began wildly for both teams as they warmed back up in the frigid night for the final 24 minutes of their seasons. South Shore sophomore Dillon O’Brien broke a 54-yard run that put the Vikings at Cape Tech’s doorstep. Soon after, Crusaders sophomore Landon Merrifield-DePaula dispatched a South Shore rush from the 7-yard line by essentially ripping the ball free from the runner right in front of the goal line.

But with the turnover pinning Cape Tech on their own 1-yard line, the fortune quickly flipped into mishap as South Shore in turn recovered a Cape Tech fumble in the end zone to retake the lead.

On their next drive, Cape Tech yet again immediately responded to a penalty that moved them backwards with a huge touchdown pass, with Handville completing a 51-yard score to Wilson, who also caught the 2-point conversion to put the Crusaders back on top 22-16.

South Shore needed just three plays to retake the lead on a run by senior Ryan Holmes. They got possession back quickly after an interception, but the Crusaders defensive unit made a game-saving stop on fourth-and-4 to return the ball to their offense, which needed to score as they were down 24-22.

First, Handville was sacked for a 9-yard loss. But something about negative yardage plays unlocked Cape Tech’s pass game. Bartlett bolted across the middle for 23 yards. Allen took a catch in the flat for a first down. The third quarter ended.

To start the fourth, Handville eluded pressure to transform a would-be sack for a huge loss into another first. A few plays later on fourth down, enter the Harwich halfback special. 

(Cape Tech had actually originally intended to use the design to open their Thanksgiving rivalry game against Upper Cape Tech the previous week, according to Castillias, but the season had clearly progressed in a way such that Castaneda decided to continue holding on to the play. Even without it, the Crusaders beat Upper Cape in Bourne 14-6 to win the Golden Wrench and the Mayflower Athletic Conference Small League title.)

After the touchdown pass from Allen to Wilson and a 2-pointer put in by Thomas, the defense forced one last turnover on downs and the offense ran out the last five minutes for the 30-24 final.

“We had that underdog mentality, but we knew we absolutely had the potential to beat any team we came up against,” Thomas said. “The only team, the only people that could beat us were ourselves, and we fixed that today.”

In addition to the vocational title, Cape Tech’s nine wins were by far the most in one season since the program split as a co-op from Harwich High School in 2010. The team had five seniors and was led by four junior captains: Handville, Bartlett, Allen and Thomas.

Castillias played during that co-op era, when Cape Tech had last reached a title game (a 7-0 loss to Ipswich in the Division 3A Super Bowl in 2006). The championship win Wednesday “bridged the gap between our old generation and the new,” he said. 

Creating that bridge was a goal he expressed before his first season as head coach in 2023. At the vocational title game, he saw alumni from all 12 of Cape Tech’s towns.

“That was beautiful stuff,” Castillias said. “It was just beautiful, and to be part of it, I just couldn't be more happy about it.”

The alumni, many of them, wore the maroon and gold colors the Crusaders previously wore until a few years ago, when the school switched to maroon and gray. After the win, the shades mixed together in the crush on the field.