The Abington Green Wave’s six-year stranglehold on the Thanksgiving Day trophy is over.

The Panthers jumped out in front of Abington with big plays by their wide receivers, and got big plays in their secondary and on special teams to hold off a late rally by the Green Wave for a 28-18 win at Abington in the 101st Thanksgiving game between the two schools.

“I can’t even describe it,” said quarterback John Caliri, who threw for two touchdowns in the win. “We’ve been here four years and hadn’t won it yet, so to take the trophy back to Whitman-Hanson is awesome.”

Whitman-Hanson went up 21-6 with just over 10 minutes to play in the game when John Caliri found Dondre James for a 28-yard touchdown pass, but Abington scored two touchdowns in less than five minutes to cut the lead to three with 4:05 to play. Abington drove down the field again and looked poised to take the lead when Ryan Henry intercepted Brandon Cawley’s pass in the end zone with 1:55 left on the clock.

The Panthers went three-and-out and punted the ball back to Abington, but junior Jerry Thompson forced a fumble on the punt return and ran it back 50 yards for a game-clinching touchdown with 6.2 seconds left on the clock.

“I ripped the ball out, it bounced, and I just picked it up and ran it back for a touchdown,” Thompson said. “It was a pretty nice way to cap it off on Thanksgiving Day.”

The Panthers then kicked the ball back to Abington and watched the final seconds tick away before celebrating their first win over the Green Wave since 2005.

For the Panther seniors, this was their first victory on Thanksgiving and the end of their first winning season as they finish 8-3.

“When I met with the seniors over the summer, this was one of the games they wanted,” head coach Mike Driscoll said. “They worked so hard for this and I’m so happy for them to go out like this … If you told me at the beginning of the year that we’d finish 8-3 and beat Abington, I’d take that in a minute.”

While the Panther offense struggled to start the game, the defense kept Abington from jumping in front with Mario Thompson recovering a fumble on Abington’s first possession and Henry ending the Green Wave’s second drive with a one-handed interception at the 47-yard line. Henry’s two picks added to his state-leading total on the season that earned him All-Scholastic status last week.

“He’s immense,” Driscoll said of Henry. “He’s a great football player and one we’re going to miss. He had a great game and a great season.”

The Panther defense suffered a blow late in the second quarter when Anthony Villanueva, who plays cornerback opposite Henry, had to leave the game with an ankle injury and could not return. Junior Jake Watkins stepped into the starting role, and despite seeing limited action during the season, turned in a strong game against a versatile Abington offense.

“Jake really never played and he had the game of his life,” Driscoll said. “You really can’t ask for any more than that.”

The offense started to find some life at the end of the first quarter when Caliri completed passes to James, Villanueva and Dave Colclough to march the team from their 19 to Abington’s 2-yard line, where Mario Thompson punched the ball into the end zone with 9:19 to play in the second quarter.

The Panthers padded their lead just before halftime when Caliri found Tom Sapienza in a coverage mismatch, and Sapienza made a leaping catch in the end zone for a 25-yard touchdown reception with 1:39 to play.

“I think they are the best receiving core in the state,” Caliri said of his wide receivers. “They’ve been unbelievable all year making catches and making big plays, and they played great today.”

The Green Wave got on the board on the opening drive of the second half on a 1-yard run by Jack Malfronte but the Panthers blocked Abington’s two-point conversion attempt to hold on to an eight-point lead and then answered with Caliri’s 28-yard strike to James.

Abington got the Panthers to bite on a double-reverse that allowed captain Pat Zadrozny to get open downfield for a 57-yard touchdown pass from Cawley, but the Panthers again stopped the two-point conversion and did the same when Pat Dwyer scored with 4:03 to play.  

The Panthers then got the interception from Henry and the touchdown by Thompson to end any hopes Abington had of coming back.

“They’ve won this thing so many times and they weren’t going to let us go easily,” Driscoll said. “But we made the plays when we needed to make them.”

After the game, captain Ian Monfils received the trophy and took it back to celebrate with the team, fans, family and alumni that came onto the field to congratulate the Panthers on snapping the program’s Thanksgiving losing streak.

“This means a whole lot,” Monfils said. This is like oursmall-town Super Bowl, it’s something that gets passed down and it’s a great feeling to be part of this.”

While the Panthers will lose 25 seniors from the team, they will return half their starting defense as well as key offensive players in James, the Thompsons and Jeff Bechen, which had Driscoll walking off the field in Abington with high hopes for next season as well.

“We return a lot,” he said. “We return six on defense and five on offense, so we’re going to go for it all next year.”