For the first time in the storied history of the Battle for the Bell, the Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern football teams needed overtime to decide a winner.
There had been two ties in the first 60 years of competition, 6-6 in 1962 and 14-14 in 2006, but never overtime. On a cold and windy Thanksgiving morning, the Rams and Lancers treated their supporters to a game that they
won’t soon forget.
When it was over, Central had claimed a 34-32 victory over Eastern. The Rams finished the season at 5-5 while the Lancers ended at 2-8. The Thomas Monahan players of the game for Central were Victor Rosa on offense and Jakob Salinas on defense. The Monahan players of the game for Eastern were Alex Marshall on offense and Bobby Mosback on defense.
New names and numbers were etched into the Bell record book that can be
found under Bristol Central football on the school’s website. Rosa tied former Central star Tim Washington’s single-game record for total touchdowns with five. Rosa accounted for all five of the Ram scores in the game, and he put his name into the book as a 100-yard game rusher after carrying the ball 31 times for 171 yards. Rosa also became the latest Central runner to eclipse 1,000 yards. He ran for 1,146 yards in 2019.
Central did also set the Bell record for most penalties with 22. One of those was an offsides on a blocked extra point late in regulation with the game tied, 26-26. The penalty gave the Lancers another chance to win the game, but the Rams again came up with a block of the extra point, and this one counted.
For Eastern, Marshall toted the ball 37 times for 159 yards and put his name into the record book for the Lancers as the most recent 100-yard rusher.
After a scoreless first quarter, Rosa got Central on the board first with a touchdown run. Eastern responded with a scoring run by Marshall, followed by a Jack Bachand extra point. The Lancers took a 7-6 lead into halftime.
Rosa put the Rams back in the lead, 12-7, with a touchdown run in
the third quarter. Eastern’s response was another Marshall touchdown run. Bachand’s extra point put the Lancers up, 14-12.
Early in the fourth quarter, Rosa ran for a go-ahead touchdown,
and Shawn Rodriguez’s two-point conversion run put the Rams ahead, 20-14. Midway through the fourth quarter, Lancer quarterback Bryce Curtin connected with Logan Schenck on a touchdown pass to tie the game, 20-20. The first of Ian Staubley’s two blocked extra points kept the game tied.
The final minutes of regulation saw a flurry of action. Rosa scored on a run to give Central a 26-20 lead, but Marshall scored on a run of his own to tie the game, 26-26, with six seconds left. Staubley’s second blocked extra point kept the score there and helped send the game to overtime.
Eastern got the ball first in overtime, and Curtin hit Edgar Santiago for a
touchdown pass. The two-point try failed, but the Lancers held a 32-26
lead.
Central needed a touchdown just to tie, and Rosa took care of that on the
first play of the Ram possession in the Kansas overtime format, scoring from 10 yards out. Each team gets four plays from the 10-yard line.
The score was tied, 32-32, after Rosa’s fifth touchdown. It was only fitting
that Rosa’s No. 2 was called on the ensuing two-point conversion, which he ran in to deliver the victory to the Rams.
Central has won the last five meetings between the schools, and the Rams
lead the all-time series, 36-23-2.
