Durfee forces five turnovers and beats BC High 29-14 in its last home game before Fenway

FALL RIVER Durfee's defense took the ball away from BC High five times Friday night in Fall River, and the Hilltoppers turned two of those takeaways into early touchdowns on the way to a 29-14 win in their last home game of the season.

The win lifts Durfee to 8-2, its fourth straight victory and its sixth win in six home games this fall, heading into its Thanksgiving eve game with New Bedford at Fenway Park. It came against a BC High team that Durfee coach Taylor Brown had called probably the toughest opponent of the Hilltoppers' season, the FRED-TV Sports broadcast crew said during the game.

Durfee scored on a fumble recovery in the first minute of the game and again after an interception, building a 15-0 lead, according to the FRED-TV Sports broadcast, and the Hilltoppers took a 22-14 lead into halftime.

The drive that settled it

Durfee took the second-half kickoff and kept the ball for 9 minutes, 53 seconds. Senior quarterback Matt Sherry found senior Landyn Nogueira for a big gain, kept the ball himself on third and 1 for a first down and then ran the Hilltoppers into the red zone, and sophomore Ahliy Cantave, who came into the night with more than 1,000 rushing yards, carried up the middle to the 5.

The Hilltoppers recovered their own fumble near the goal line, BC High senior Hayden Boyd stopped Cantave about a yard short and Sherry was held inches short on third and goal, but a BC High neutral-zone infraction on fourth and goal gave Durfee another chance, and Sherry dove across the goal line. The extra point made it 29-14 with about two minutes left in the third quarter.

BC High did not score again, and Durfee kept taking the ball away, intercepting a pass thrown into double coverage late in the third quarter for its third takeaway of the night, and midway through the fourth quarter a hard hit on a completed pass jarred the ball loose and the Hilltoppers recovered. With under three minutes to play Durfee picked off BC High again for its fifth takeaway, and Cantave ran for a first down that let the Hilltoppers run out the clock.

BC High, coached by Paul Zukauskas, a four-year starting lineman at Boston College who played five NFL seasons with the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers, according to the school, moved the ball in stretches behind junior running back Isaiah Christian, who ran for several first downs in the fourth quarter, and the loss dropped the Eagles to 2-8.

What comes next

Durfee closes its season against New Bedford at Fenway Park in Boston at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving, according to Durfee's MaxPreps schedule. General admission tickets are $20 through the Red Sox website and cover both games at the park that day, NBC 10 WJAR reported.

Our preview of the game, with Cantave's season and the two teams side by side: Sophomore Ahliy Cantave and 7-2 Durfee host BC High Friday in their last home game before Fenway. Every South Coast final is on the Friday Night Scoreboard.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.