HAMILTON – A last-minute blemish on an overall masterpiece nearly cost the Nottingham High football team, but the Northstars were able to survive for their biggest win in a long time. Celebrating Senior Day in style, Nottingham held off a late Notre Dame comeback for a 26-23 victory Saturday. It was the third straight win for the ‘Stars (3-5), who snapped a four-game winning streak by Notre Dame (5-3). It should aid their playoff positioning in the South Jersey United Power Rankings (they were 16th entering the day). “As of recently we’ve been winning the games we’re supposed to win but the ones we’re not expected to win, we don’t win,” coach Milo McGuire said. “Nobody expected us to win this game. They just beat Paul VI and Paul VI beat us 42-7 on opening day. For us to come in and defend home turf, that means the world.” It certainly wasn’t easy. After 45 minutes of near flawless football, the wheels started coming off. With 2:39 left ND got a touchdown pass from back-up QB Dillon White to Wyatt Moore to make it 26-16. Anthony Merlino recovered an onsides kick but it appeared moot after Jackson Hughes’ interception with 2:08 left. “I thought that won it,” Hughes said. “But things happen.” In an effort to run the clock out, Nottingham got a bad snap in the shotgun that turned into a mega loss when Sabri Melvin was called for intentional grounding trying to avoid a sack. Nottingham’s safety for stepping out of the end zone on a punt was nullified by an Irish penalty, but the Irish then blocked the punt and it took four plays for White to find Moore again. Suddenly it was a three-point game with 1:01 left. The Irish thought they recovered another onsides kick, but it was grabbed one yard short of the required 10 yards and Nottingham finally ran out the clock. “We were definitely getting nervous,” Hughes said. “We did our stuff though and we got the win at the end.” “The last two-and-a-half minutes; I don’t know what was going on,” McGuire said. “Just silly mistakes that we practiced. The situational awareness just wasn’t there and I’m gonna have to address that on Monday.” But overall, McGuire was all smiles as his team dominated most of the game. Nottingham outgained the Irish 384-288 in total offense and kept the ball for long chunks of time as it ground out 274 rushing yards. Bruising sophomore Augie Cassidy ran for 145 and a TD and thrilled the fans with a 74-yard run to the 2-yard line. “He’s able to run right off my butt and go down the field as far as he wants to go,” said right guard Gabe Negron. “I’m gonna bust his chops he didn’t get in the endzone on that run,” McGuire quipped. “But there’s a reason why he’s a sophomore captain. The kid is a spark plug. He does the dirty work. He gets a little over the top sometimes but he’s what Northstar Nation stands for.” Dante Vazquez bounced back from a rough game against Princeton, in which he was removed in the second half. The junior completed 10 of 15 passes for 115 yards and two touchdowns with no turnovers. “He made a great comeback,” Negron said. “I was glad he was able to get on the same page as the coaches.” McGuire made sure he was on the same page. “I gotta give my hats off to him, this was not a good week for him to be a Northstar,” the coach said. “He got the brunt of my ire in the meetings this week. But he took it, he has thick skin. He stood there and he threw some bullets. I’m very proud of him.” He also lofted some nice passes that found the electrifying Sabri Melvin in the endzone. After ND took  3-0 lead on Sebastian Swiatek’s field goal, Melvin beat his defender to grab a perfectly thrown TD pass and then added the conversion run. Irish quarterback Julian Matera answered with a 4-yard scoring run, but got shaken up on the play and wasn’t the same from that point. He eventually came out in the fourth quarter. Trailing 10-8, Nottingham took the lead into the locker room when Qymir McMillan scored on a nine-yard reverse run. The Stars widened their lead on Vazquez’s TD pass in the third quarter and Cassidy’s rumbling touchdown run in the fourth. Cassidy’s fierce running helped wear down the Irish defense as the Northstars sustained drives. They were just 3-for-9 on third-down conversions, but 6-for-7 on fourth down tries, including a fake punt deep in their own territory. Much of the credit goes to the junior-dominated O-line of left tackle Ernest Gaykai (the lone senior), left guard Joe DiClaudio, center Joe Septak, right guard Negron and right tackle Tylin Douglas. “We improved pretty well today,” Negron said. “We played as a unit this time and I expect that from us for the rest of the season. It’s just a great group of guys to play with” Asked how they planned to attack Notre Dame’s rugged defense, Negron said “Having everybody speaking on the line and knowing what their assignment was. In practice we knew there would be a lot of stems and they would be in a six-front and fortunately we all did our assignments.” McGuire feels the line is work in progress but getting better. “We had high expectations coming in,” he said. “We got let down a little bit the first couple weeks and we just had to put our nose to the grindstone and figure it out. Are we bulldozing people? No. But they’re understanding the concepts and that’s all you can ask for right now.” Defensively, Nottingham’s secondary of McMillan, Melvin and James Rumph shut down any deep stuff and linebackers Hughes, Cassidy and Joanem Hassan continued to play outstandingly. “All practice we were running nickel,” Hughes said. “We had three linebackers instead of four, we knew they were gonna run their short routes and we executed and we got the job done. We’ve got great DBs that locked up their receivers and we did our stuff.” A bright spot for Notre Dame was the relief job by Hill, who was 9-for-12 for 99 yards and two TDs. He nearly pulled it out for the Irish, who were sixth in Non-Public B UPR entering play. Nottingham did a lot to help its playoff standing but McGuire isn’t certain where things stand. “A lot of things are still in flux,” he said. “We did a real good job for ourselves in this game. We’ll see where the numbers crunch Sunday night but we gave ourselves a good win today.” Asked what the win meant, Hughes got right to the point. “Everything,” he said. Notre Dame (5-3) 3 7 0 13 — 23 Nottingham (3-5) 0 14 6 6 — 26 ND-Swiatek 26 FG N–Melvin 14 pass from Vazquez (Melvin run) ND–Matera 4 run (Swiatek kick) N–McMillan 9 run (run failed) N–Melvin 28 pass from Vazquez (kick failed) N–Cassidy 24 run (run failed) ND–Moore 5 pass from White (run failed) ND–Moore 8 pass from White (Swiatek kick)