Dugger Breaks Routine For Pivotal TD Catch

Hall receiver Ian Dugger bolted off the line of scrimmage and toward the goal-line for a seemingly routine down-and-out pattern. Except that the game was scoreless. The opponent was Conard. And the football was not in his quarterback's hands.

“I don’t know if I’m happy with the play but I’m happy with the result,” Hall coach Frank Robinson said.

As Dugger tried to separate from defender Anthony Lugo, the shotgun snap squirted away from quarterback George Lund. But Dugger improvised to give Lund a target, catching a 15-yard touchdown pass that sparked Hall to a 20-0 victory over previously unbeaten Conard Saturday at McKee Stadium.

“I heard [Lund] was fumbling it," Dugger said. "That’s why the pass wasn’t perfect.”

Averaging 87.7 yards receiving a game, Dugger was held to 38 yards on four receptions. But in the 55th matchup in the pressurized crosstown rivalry, Dugger was on the same season-long wavelength as Lund, hauling in his 12th TD.

“Anthony [Lugo] is a great cornerback and he was playing me inside all day,” Dugger said. “We talked at halftime that when we’re in the goal-line, I would be open on the outside route. He saw that I was open.”

Lund (8-for-18 passing, 114 yards), working from a spread offense, managed to recover the loose ball on second down and was immediately under seige by Conard. He seemed destined for a sizeable loss.

“We’re lucky. They could have picked it too,” Robinson said. “He stopped it, he got it and then I would say the reason he threw it was because he has Dugger and [Devin] Ortiz out there. Go ahead, take a chance. We have some great athletes.”

Hall, which stalled on three earlier drives inside the Conard 25 -- twice inside the 5 -- had just lost 5 yards on first down. The second-down play called for a “12-yard out,” Dugger said.

“[Lugo] tried to jam me [at the line] a little bit,” said Dugger, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound senior. “He was chasing me and I knew where the ball was. I got a chance to see it and just came back for it.”

The victory gave Hall (9-1) a share of the CCC Division I West title with Conard and clinched a berth in the Class LL playoffs. Conard (9-1) had already secured one of eight playoff spots.

“There’s talk about every year we try to come out with new stuff to play Conard,” Dugger said. “We just realized that our stuff works, and we’re just going to do our thing, not change anything up, and play smash-mouth football.”

Dugger, Hall's leading tackler this season, intercepted quarterback Owen Snyder twice, including with 7:23 to play and Conard down, 14-0.

“They played better than we did today. That’s it in a nutshell," Conard coach Rob Cersosimo said. "They played a great game and we played a solid game and we can’t play a solid game against a great team.”

Dugger also ran five times for 19 yards.

“He knows football,” Robinson said. “He knows where to be. He definitely has that knack.”

Last year Hall squeezed into the playoffs, losing its final two games, including a rout by Conard.

“That was a little chip on our shoulder,” Dugger said. “In my mind, I was saying ‘41-0’ before the game.”

Hall has won six in a row since a 19-0 loss to New Britain Oct. 6. Hall also ended Conard’s 15-game home winning streak with its first victory at McKee since 27-21 in 2005.

“We have momentum,” Dugger said. “We just have to prepare.”