Cape Tech Finds Overtime Winner In Rain-Soaked State Playoff Tournament Opener

PLEASANT LAKE – For the fourth postseason game for the Cape Cod Tech football team in a row (dating back to 2025), the Crusaders trailed late.

For the fourth postseason game in a row, they made the plays — somehow, again — needed to pull out another historic result in the clutch. 

But this — a 28-26 overtime victory over No. 13 Bartlett (6-3) in the first round of the Division 8 tournament last Friday — was the biggest of them all. 

With it, No. 4 Cape Tech (8-0) advanced to the state playoff quarterfinals — and also extended a win streak, which started last year and included a vocational title run, to 16 games.

“It just reminded me of last year and the feeling of us just winning and winning and making it to the finals,” said senior Thomas Allen, who had 23 carries for 250 yards and two touchdowns. “And it just reminds me of how much I love this team and how much I want to do it again this year in the state tournament, not the vocational.”

The meeting with Bartlett, the Crusaders’ first-ever home state playoff game, almost didn’t even happen Friday. Rain fell that hard in Harwich.

Weather made the grass field at Cape Tech deemed unsafe for play, and the game actually did get temporarily, precautionarily postponed. Bartlett’s bus was cancelled. Nobody was happy.

By 1 p.m., decision-makers were still going back and forth, according to head coach Calvin Castillias, but after walking the field again, they told Bartlett they felt like the game that evening could still be played, a decision Bartlett supported. 

The precipitation — which didn’t relent from opening kickoff all the way to senior Chaz Thomas’s win-clinching 2-point conversion rush in overtime — absolutely favored Bartlett’s offensive scheme, an approach that rested entirely on the legs of junior Jaesean Atkins, who finished with four touchdowns.

Meanwhile, Cape Tech’s passing attack was outright neutralized. Senior quarterback Daniel Handville completed one of four passes for five yards (Bartlett completed zero).

The pouring rain wasn’t a surprise, but the impact was undeniable. A gash of mud opened on Cape Tech’s side of the field. The umpire at the line of scrimmage held a towel over the football before spotting it on the ground. Bartlett’s white uniforms gradually turned light green.

And backs like Atkins, Allen and Thomas became the stormy night’s central weapons (and, amazingly, neither team fumbled).

“We were looking at the weather all week, and we were planning for it,” Allen said. “We were planning to give me the ball a lot because of the conditions, so I was ready. I trained, definitely all week, for the conditions. I knew it was going to be slippery, and I was ready to run the ball. I knew what we were doing, and I knew how to execute it.”

Like lightning, Cape Tech struck quickly. Bartlett opened with an onside kick attempt, and the Crusaders ended a straightforward drive with a Handville rushing touchdown at the goal line.  

Like thunder, Bartlett not much later arrived with an announcement of their presence. After Bartlett turned the Crusaders over on downs in their own red area to end the first quarter, Atkins began the next with a massive touchdown run. Bartlett again onside kicked, successfully — fully flipping the momentum. 

Their ensuing drive stalled at Cape Tech’s 19-yard line, and the first play immediately following the possession change was an Allen 81-yard touchdown run.

“Emotions were high, and rain was pouring, putting us in a bad spot already, but I think that my teammates really just kept in it,” said senior Anthony Bartlett, who had five carries for 50 yards for Cape Tech. “We all kept our heads straight and we kept playing every play, and we just thought of it as just one play after the other.”

The roller coaster second quarter continued with an additional Atkins run at the 0:42 mark, which was enough time for a response via a 50-yard Allen run that put Cape Tech back at the doorstep. Thomas punched in the touchdown, and the Crusaders led 20-14 at the half.

A scoreless third quarter breezed by, and in the fourth, Atkins ran in yet another touchdown to tie the score 20-20. Four minutes remained when Bartlett got the ball back at midfield with a chance for a game-winning drive. 

Instead, a fourth-and-1 at Cape Tech’s 29-yard line with 75 seconds left ended with a season-saving stop by the Crusaders defense, a unit of players who racked up tackles in the second half as they tried to contain Atkins through the wet.

Thomas ended with 13 tackles and a sack, senior Tanner Cambal had 12 tackles, and junior Cole Spencer recorded 9 tackles.

“They put a lot on that number four kid [Atkins], man, and he takes it, and I admire that about them,” Castillias said. “But we refuse to be denied.”

The Crusaders thereafter had to quickly punt back to Bartlett, and the visitors reached the Cape Tech’s 19-yard line and were scrambling to attempt a field goal to no avail as regulation expired.

In overtime (each team getting four plays to score from the 10-yard line), Atkins instantly found the end zone to put Bartlett up 26-20, but their 2-point conversion attempt was stifled.

For Cape Tech’s turn, a pivotal defensive penalty on third down salvaged the possession and put the ball at the 3-yard line, from which Allen ran in the tying score. Thomas then delivered the game-winning conversion rush.

The Cardiac Crusaders had done it again — it being semi-miraculous postseason finishes.

“It was amazing, and the rain, the conditions, it was perfect,” Allen said. “It was perfect.”

At the beginning of the week, Castillias said he told the team the one thing they had this year was experience, and with it the knowledge that nothing would be easy and everything would have to be fought for — insight gained from last season’s repeated comeback efforts on the road during the vocational tournament.

Now, after winning their first MIAA playoff game since 2006 (back when the program was a co-op with Harwich), Cape Tech gets one more home postseason contest — when they host No. 5 Lynn Tech (7-1) at 6 p.m. Friday in the Division 8 quarterfinals.

“We're still taking on the underdog mentality as a small school who very rarely gets these opportunities,” Castillias said.

The entire season, senior Nathan Eldredge said, has been dedicated to — in addition to winning and improving — proving to every team not just on the Cape but in Division 8 and the state that the Crusaders “can really perform as a team,” that they can win.

“It's just in our hearts, the passion,” he said. “We all just want to get this so bad.”

They’ll get at least one more chance later this week to continue providing that proof.