NY Giants quarterback Eli Manning torched the Philadelphia Eagles secondary for four touchdowns yesterday, and three times the Giants defense was able to turn back the Eagles on fourth down attempts, but it was still a nail-biter in pulling out a 28-23 win in East Rutherford yesterday.
Manning threw touchdown passes to Roger Lewis, Jr., Sterling Shepard, and two to Odell Beckam, Jr., but he was also intercepted late in the game and the Eagles had the ball on the Giants 17-yard line before the Big Blue defense came up big again and stuffed any hopes of a last minute Eagles victory. The win was the Giants third in a row as they improve to 5-3 on the season while the Eagles, after a hot start to the year, are now a very ordinary 4-4. One sour note for the Giants, wide receiver Victor Cruz had to leave the game with an ankle injury midway through the second quarter, and did not return to the game.
The NY Jets did not fare as well as the Giants, losing to the Dolphins in Miami 27-23 thanks largely to poor special teams defensive coverage, although give some credit too to Dolphins rookie Kenyan Drake, who returned a kickoff return 96 yards for a touchdown with just over five minutes left in the game to give Miami the win. The Jets are kicking themselves extra for that one because they had gone ahead 23-20 just moments before, taking advantage of a botched Miami punt to score the go-ahead points, and actually kicked the ball off successfully to Miami's Jakeem Grant, taking him down deep in Miami territory, but the kick had to be re-done because Antonio Allen of the Jets was offsides on the kickoff. Enter Drake on the re-try, who took it 96 yards to the house to improve Miami to 4-4 on teh year while the Jets drop to 3-6.
The New England Patriots enjoyed their bye week yesterday. They'll host the Seattle Seahawks at Foxboro next Sunday.
In the NBA the Boston Celtics are trying to power through a stretch of games with a number of their starters out with injury, including Jae Crowder and their big off season acquisition Al Horford. But the Denver Nuggets came into Boston on game four of a five game road trip, so they weren't exactly at their freshest either, and yet they shrugged off any road weariness to blast the Celtics out of their own building 123-107. Emmanuel Mudiay had gone scoreless in his previous game with Denver but made up for it last night, scoring a season high 30 points, and the TD Garden crowd went into full boo chorus to let the home town C's know what they thought of Boston's fair weather defensive effort.
In the NHL, beware the Blueshirts. The NY Rangers are skating rings around just about every team in the league right now, and last night won their fifth straight game, topping the Winnipeg Jets 5-2 at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers blew the game open late in the second period, getting goals from J.T. Miller, Jesper Fast and Pavel Buchnevich just four minutes apart, with Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello also lighting the lamp behind 24 saves from Henrik Lundqvist. Make it eight wins in their last nine games to go with that five-game winning streak for the Rangers.
Over the weekend on Saturday the number-two seeded Burlington boys' division one high school soccer team took home the state crown, defeating top-seeded Essex 1-0 on a goal by Seraphin Iradukunka, the first state championship for the Seahorses since 2008.
It was a thriller in the girls' division one state title game as Burr and Burton went to double overtime against Colchester, with the Bulldogs winning it on a beautiful corner kick by Sky Woodard, headed into the net for the game winner by Grace Pinkus, delivering BBA their first girls' division one state championship.
In division two, it was Milton sophomore Tatum Shappy playing hero yet again for the Yellowjackets, scoring the only goal of the game to give Milton a 1-0 win over Montpelier, and back to back division two state titles.
A different story in the boys' division two title game, however, as Milton fell to Lake Region 4-0, marking a first for Lake Region, taking their first ever state soccer title.
Yesterday the division one state high school cross country championships were swept in both the boys and girls divisions by CVU, marking eight straight girls' title for the Redhawks, while the boys won for the second consecutive year.
In Division two it was the Harwood girls taking the state title, with Erin Magill leading the pack for Harwood. In the the boys' division two race it was U-32 edging out Harwood for the title, and in division three a huge state championship victory for the Rice Memorial boys, taking home the title for the first time since 1964. The Rice girls finished second to repeating champs Oxbow in division three.
And finally, the South Burlington Rebels won the high school field hockey state title Saturday defeating Essex 4-2. Kate Hall and Emma Liebegott each scored twice to power South Burlington to the win and the championship.
