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FOXBORO - Another shutout, another big game for Shawn Doherty, another dominating performance over Foxboro High.

Just another Thanksgiving Day for the Hornets.

The Mansfield High football team took the field at the Ahern School on Thursday morning at dominated the 79th renewal of the rivalry from start to finish, coming away with a 36-0 victory over Foxboro to finish the year 9-2 overall, second place in the Hockomock League.

"It was a great way to finish (the season) and finish second in the league," Mansfield coach Mike Redding said. "I think it was the hardest league in the state. It was a great season."

It was Mansfield's third straight victory in the series and second straight shutout. The Hornets now lead the overall series 44-32-3. "We were outplayed in every phase of the game," Foxboro coach Jack Martinelli said, whose team finished the year 7-4. "They were a better football team."

The Hornets threw the ball with ease to start the game, which opened up the Foxboro defense for Doherty, who earned his second straight Don Currivan Most Valuable Player Award for Mansfield by scoring all five Hornet touchdowns on the day, three rushing and two receiving.

"He's unbelievable," said Mansfield senior quarterback Nik Busharis, who was no slouch himself, throwing for 166 yards and two touchdowns.

The Hornets started the game in dominant fashion, forcing a three-and-out on Foxboro's opening possession and then scoring in just four plays after the Warriors aided Mansfield after the punt with a 15-yard facemask penalty, giving the Hornets the ball on the Warrior 45. Busharis completed his first three passes of the game (two to Doherty) to work the ball down to the 7-yard line before Doherty rushed in for the score.

Foxboro continued to lose the field position battle early. After the Warriors returned the ensuing kickoff to just the 12-yard, they were forced to punt from their own 21 yard line. Crashing hard off the left edge, Mansfield's Rodney Chance partially blocked the kick, the ball making it only 11 yards as Mansfield started its second straight possession inside Foxboro territory.

"It wasn't even a called block, he just came off the edge hard," Redding said.

The Hornets first play from scrimmage went to the one as Matt Zonghetti took a handoff around the left edge and almost scored. But it appeared Foxboro would hold the Hornets as Doherty was tackled at the five on the next play and then stuffed on his next run.

But on third-and-goal Doherty motioned from the backfield to the right side of the line and was left wide open in the flat, Busharis hitting his fellow senior for Mansfield's second touchdown of the game and Busharis' fourth straight completion.

"He completed a lot of passes. He never made a bad decision and the line gave him a lot of time," Redding said. "We felt coming into the game that we could throw the ball. We felt that that was our advantage."

Foxboro was on the verge of making it a ballgame with its next possession as the Warriors drove to the Mansfield 10 after a pass interference call, setting up first-and-goal. But the Hornet defense battled to bring up fourth-and-goal from the two before Foxboro quarterback Nick Sestito fumbled the snap on fourth down, ending the threat. "If it was 14-7 at halftime this is a whole different game," Redding said. "That was a big stand to even get them into fourth-and-(goal)."

The two teams traded possessions until halftime, neither really threatening to score as Foxboro went into the half with hope.

But it was dashed quickly. On the second play of the second half (following a five-yard loss by Zonghetti) Busharis hit tight end Matt Schafer on a deep route over the middle, the captain bobbling the ball at first but securing the catch and racing down the left sideline to the Foxboro six. From there it took just two Doherty runs to make the score 22-0 after a two-point conversion.

"That big pass play to Schafer to start the half was huge," Redding said. "We said at halftime if they score first it's a whole different game, we scored and that was a big swing. Whoever scored the next touchdown the game was going to play out very differently."

Up to that point the Mansfield passing attack had been carrying the offense, as the Hornets had just one run of over 10 yards and only 43 total yards on the ground.

"The first play (of the game) was going to be a pass but I didn't expect us to throw this much," Busharis said. "I thought we would stick to our run game like we usually do. It wasn't really the plan."

Busharis completed his big day with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Doherty to start the fourth quarter before the rushing game completely took over, Doherty putting an exclamation point on his day with a 95-yard touchdown run with just under six minutes remaining.

Meanwhile, the Mansfield defense made sure Foxboro stayed off the board. A new quarterback, Steve Fitzmaurice, couldn't help the Warrior offense, which reached the Mansfield red zone just once in the second half. Down 29-0 Mike Delaney caught a pass from Fitzmaurice over the middle to get the ball to the Hornet 15, but just two plays later the junior quarterback tried to force a pass while avoiding a sack, the jump-ball intercepted by Mansfield's David Eberhart.

Delaney finished the day with 114 yards and earned Vin Igo Award honors as Foxboro's MVP, while Luke Soccorso added 52 of his own. But the Warriors couldn't break a big play (their longest play was 18 yards) and turned the ball over three times, twice via interception.

"The key was controlling Soccorso and Delaney, they had some good runs but we never gave them the big one," Redding said. "We bent a little but never broke, we just came up with some big plays once they got in our end."

Mansfield has now won six of the last seven meetings between the teams, shutting out Foxboro in four of those games.

"This is the best," Busharis said. "This is better than the Super Bowl."