Bennett Tobin and Plymouth South host Whitman-Hanson Friday as two Panthers teams meet at 6 p.m.

PLYMOUTH Sophomore Bennett Tobin carried Plymouth South into the state tournament with five touchdowns in two October wins, and on Friday night he and the Panthers host Whitman-Hanson, another team called the Panthers.

Plymouth South (3-6) plays Whitman-Hanson (2-7) at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, at Plymouth South High School, 490 Long Pond Road, a game the MIAA placed on its Week 10 list of non-playoff matchups. Both teams' MaxPreps schedules list the 6 p.m. kickoff with Plymouth South at home, and the school sells tickets through GoFan.

Neither team is chasing a bracket now, since Plymouth South entered the Division 3 tournament as the No. 11 seed and lost 42-0 at No. 6 North Attleborough on Nov. 5, the MIAA bracket shows, and Whitman-Hanson finished the first eight weeks at 2-6 and stayed out of the field. Friday's game is the last one on either schedule before Thanksgiving.

How Plymouth South got here

Plymouth South opened with a 6-0 win at Silver Lake on Sept. 11, its MaxPreps schedule shows, then lost five straight to Bridgewater-Raynham, Mansfield, Scituate, Hanover and Quincy. The closest of those was a 13-12 loss at Hanover on Oct. 9. The Panthers answered with a 32-14 win over Pembroke on Oct. 23 and a 28-27 win at North Quincy on Oct. 30, and the MIAA seeded them 11th at 3-5.

Sophomores made many of the big plays in both wins, The Plymouth Independent's stories on the two games show. At North Quincy, Tobin carried 36 times for 166 yards and three touchdowns, his first three-touchdown varsity game. The swing play came on the last snap of the first half with Plymouth South up 7-6: senior defensive end Sam Leonard stripped the ball loose, and sophomore lineman James Stafford scooped it up and ran 69 yards for the first touchdown of his life. "We had our back to the wall and the kids fought their way back into the tournament," coach Darren Fruzzetti told the Independent before the tournament opener, adding, "A big difference in the last couple of weeks is the offensive line has played great and we've won the turnover battle in both games."

Against Pembroke on Senior Night, the paper reported, Tobin scored on runs of 13 and 24 yards, and two punt returns went the distance: 64 yards by senior captain Kyle Nguyen and 51 yards by sophomore Brenton Cozzone. Sophomore quarterback Cooper Fry threw his first varsity touchdown pass in the second half, to senior captain Brayden McNulty, who also had a big night on defense. Tobin came into the tournament with eight touchdowns this season, and Nguyen has scored on a punt return and a fumble recovery.

The paper lists the line that has opened those holes as tight end Chase Tarantino, Cam Latham, Stafford, Thomas DeCoste and Benjamin Holmes around center Benjamin Wozniak. Plymouth South's MaxPreps roster lists Latham, a 6-foot, 240-pound senior, at tackle and McNulty, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound senior, at fullback and middle linebacker, with seniors Jack Brady and Cam Horvath at outside linebacker.

Whitman-Hanson's season

Whitman-Hanson lost its opener 27-18 to Pembroke on Sept. 11, its MaxPreps schedule shows, then won 22-7 at Stoughton on Sept. 18 and 34-0 over Carver on Sept. 25. Then came the Patriot League Keenan Division, where the Panthers lost all five games: 21-13 to Silver Lake, 34-19 at Plymouth North on Oct. 8, 34-7 at Hingham, 41-7 to Duxbury and 39-20 to Marshfield, and Middleborough won 20-14 at Whitman-Hanson on Nov. 5 for a sixth straight loss.

Bill Frazier, a 1995 Whitman-Hanson graduate who had coached as an assistant and served as president of the local youth football program, took over in July after the abrupt resignation of new coach Bradley Leal, The Boston Globe reported in its preseason guide and weekly notes. His first win came at Stoughton, where his son, junior Quinn Frazier, ran for 120 yards and two touchdowns. Senior Bobby Walker, a second-year captain at running back and defensive back, did a bit of everything in the Carver shutout, with 103 rushing yards, a 25-yard touchdown catch, a 68-yard interception return for another score and a team-high eight tackles. The guide listed a spread offense and 16 returning starters for a program that has not had a winning record since 2022.

Plymouth South and Whitman-Hanson, side by side (MaxPreps schedules and rosters, MIAA bracket, our math)

	Plymouth South	Whitman-Hanson
Record	3-6, 2-3 in the Patriot League Fisher Division	2-7, 0-5 in the Patriot League Keenan Division
Coach	Darren Fruzzetti	Bill Frazier, first season
Points scored and allowed	102 and 235	154 and 223
Per game, our math	11.3 scored, 26.1 allowed	17.1 scored, 24.8 allowed
Against Pembroke	Won 32-14, Oct. 23	Lost 27-18, Sept. 11
Against Silver Lake	Won 6-0 at Silver Lake, Sept. 11	Lost 21-13, Oct. 2
Tournament	No. 11 seed in Division 3, lost 42-0 at North Attleborough	Not in the field
Last game	Lost 42-0 at North Attleborough, Nov. 5	Lost 20-14 to Middleborough, Nov. 5
Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 10 a.m.	At Plymouth North	At Abington

The matchup

Our read: the two common opponents lean toward Plymouth South, which beat Pembroke by 18 points and won at Silver Lake while Whitman-Hanson lost to both by a combined 17. Whitman-Hanson has scored about six more points a game, though, and Walker gives its spread offense a runner who can also catch the ball and change a game on defense. Plymouth South's answer has been a sophomore back behind an improving line, plus special teams and turnovers. The Panthers scored twice on punt returns against Pembroke and once on a fumble return at North Quincy, and their coach credited the turnover margin for both wins. Plymouth North links the two as well, since it beat Whitman-Hanson 34-19 in October and is Plymouth South's Thanksgiving opponent.

How to watch

Kickoff is 6 p.m. at Plymouth South High School, 490 Long Pond Road. GoFan lists tickets at $5 plus a $1.25 fee, $6.25 in all. Plymouth South's NFHS Network page lists no stream of the game, and Plymouth EDTV, the school district's YouTube channel, had no game scheduled Friday morning. South Coast 360 will have the final Friday night.

What comes next

Plymouth South plays at Plymouth North at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 26, and Whitman-Hanson plays at Abington at 10 a.m. the same morning, the teams' MaxPreps schedules show. Plymouth North (2-7), which is on the MIAA's Week 10 list at Hanover, comes off its 29-0 shutout of Hopkinton on Nov. 6.

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