Pioneers Look to Bounce Back

Bill Parcells, aka the Tuna, used to talk about "trap games" when he was coaching the Patriots. You could made a case that the Pioneers are facing just such a game when they host the Cathedral High Panthers this Saturday afternoon.

Lynnfield is coming off a tough loss to a good team in a game where they admittedly didn't play as well as they could have. They return home to face a squad that on paper is nowhere in the same league, literally and figuratively, as the Wildcats.

Cathedral is a small Catholic High School in Boston with only 250 students. They play in the Catholic Central Small League in Division 4A, two down from the CAL Small. The only exposure Lynnfield has had to that league is Matignon, a club the Pioneers have battered two years in a row.

The Panthers come to town 0-3 having lost to O'Bryant 28-8, Hyde Park 12-6 and Burke 34-26. The only frame of reference for any of those teams comes from O'Bryant which lost to East Boston 34-8. As you know from my "Around the League" post, Eastie beat Amesbury 34-19.

Cathedral is averaging 13.3 points per game and allowing 24.7 points per game. The Massey ratings (a service that rates all high school football teams and predicts results) rates the Panthers 310th out of 315 schools in Massachusetts. The Pioneers are ranked 187th. The Massey prediction has the Pioneers winning 40-8. They have been close on a couple of other Pioneer predictions so far this year including Matignon (23-6 win; actual 34-7 win) and Wilmington (25-15 loss; actual 28-7 loss). They were way off on Georgetown picking a 27-16 Royal win. We know how that turned out.

So on paper, this is a mismatch. However, the old cliche is that they don't play these games on paper. They play them on the field. And if the weather forecast is accurate, they will be playing on a muddy, slippery Middle School field in the rain on Saturday. That is always a huge equalizer for an underdog.

Bottom line is that the Pioneers should win easily, but they need to take care of business and not take anything for granted. They are still learning to win. This will be an important game to show they have made another significant step in the right direction.

We'll have more after the game on Saturday night.