This story originally ran in The Standard-Times on Oct. 5, 2002.

By Nick Tavares
Standard-Times correspondent

FAIRHAVEN -- The Fairhaven Blue Devils fought to the end but came up just shy of their first win of the season, losing a heartbreaker in overtime last night to Scituate, 28-26.

"We did a lot of good things and we continue to show improvement," said Fairhaven head coach Phil Harding, "but the one thing that we haven't improved enough on however is eliminating major mistakes, and that's what's hurting us right now."

Scituate (2-2) got on the board first when wideout Tom McCarthy brought down a pass in the back of the end zone from quarterback Brad Barnard, but was answered back quickly on Fairhaven's first possession.

Quarterback Adam Tyson drove the Blue Devils offense 72 yards on a combination of scrambles and hand-offs to fullback Josh Charpentier. Just inside the second quarter, Charpentier ran the ball eight yards for the touchdown.

Scituate answered on its next possession, when Jarrett Dawson pulled in a Barnard pass from 10 yards out to make the score 12-6 at the half.

After Fairhaven (0-4) punted away on its first possession of the second half, Dan Leferierre intercepted at the Scituate 41, setting the table for running back Gary Turmelle, who ran the ball 40 yards to the Scituate 1 on the next play. Turmelle then ran the ball in himself for the 1-yard touchdown, which was followed by a successful two-point conversion run by Tyson to put Fairhaven up 14-12.

Turmelle came up big again early in the fourth quarter with a series of runs, including another 1-yard TD to make the score 20-12.

Turmelle would wind up with 134 yards rushing on the night, with all but 10 coming in the second half.

After receiving a punt at the Fairhaven 40 with 1:54 to go, Scituate capitalized in the form of a 40-yard Mike Noonan TD run, followed by a Barnard rush for the extra two points to tie the game and send it to overtime.

Placing the ball on the 10, the Sailors found the end zone on their second play and successfully executed the two-point conversion to put themselves in the lead for the first time since the second quarter at 28-20.

Fairhaven then answered back by giving the ball to Turmelle, who ran the ball first to the 5 and then to inches from the end zone, where he then dove in over the line to bring the Blue Devils within two.

Fairhaven missed a chance to send the game to a second overtime when Turmelle was stopped on the two-point conversion.

Coach Harding saw growth in his team, as well as many positives after the game, but also stressed the need for improvement.

"We did so many good things offensively," said Harding. "Defensively, we have a lot of young kids who are learning and they're getting better, but we had a chance to take control of the game and we gave it away.

"We got that feeling as we started to take control that good teams start to get. However, we have to go out an execute to finish the game off, and unfortunately we're not their yet.

"We made a lot of mental mistakes and we cannot afford that. And it's a shame, because we wasted a lot of our good efforts."

This story appeared on Page B5 of The Standard-Times on October 5, 2002.