BURLINGTON — The Middlebury Union High School football team injected itself back into the Division I playoff race on Friday, when the Tigers knocked off previously undefeated Burlington, 19-14.
The Tigers are 4-3 and moved into fifth place in Division I with a game at No. 6 Champlain Valley (3-4) this Saturday remaining in the regular season. Their losses have come to the top two teams in the D-I and the top team in D-II.
MUHS fell behind on Friday when Kevin Garrison’s 12-yard scoring run immediately followed Ryan Mitchell’s 80-yard return of the opening kickoff.
But the Tiger defense held BHS (6-1) in check while the offense scored the next 19 points: a 1-yard Tyler Hotte run to make it 6-6 at 10:54 of the second quarter, an 8-yard Hotte run to cap the Tigers’ first possession of the second half, and an 11-yard TD pass from QB Cody Pomainville to Lane Sheldrick with 8:01 left in the game to make it 19-6.
With about five minutes to go, Burlington took over at the Middlebury 24 and soon after a 19-yard Garrison run Manny Dodson scored from the three. Garrison finished with 79 yards on the ground, well below his average.
The Tigers ran out the clock when they got the ball back. Sheldrick finished with a game-high 102 yards, Hotte ground out 80 yards on 21 attempts, and Cam Devlin picked off a pass.