Triton Leftovers

Hear that sound? It's the growing buzz surrounding the 5-1 Pioneers. They are certainly on a roll and it comes at a good time heading into the balance of their CAL Small schedule.

You can get all the game details in my Villager article this week, but there are a lot of other things to get to following the game. So hang in there. This could get lengthy. But it's always fun talking about a win right?


R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Lynnfield football hasn't been respected for quite some time and that was certainly the case going into the Triton game. Handicapping the Pioneer-Viking game in his predictions column last Friday, Dan Guttenplan of the Newburyport Daily News stated that "Triton should begin its league schedule next weekend with a 6-0 record....". He predicted a 21-7 Viking win.

Uh, not quite.

But after defeating the Vikings, who Globe North had rated #10 on the North Shore this week, the Pioneers are going to start to get noticed.

"It's great for the kids," said Pioneer head coach Neal Weidman. "We went through some years here where the kids didn't get a lot of attention. Even though they weren't quite as good, they still had to go out and put the pads on and hit and it's not easy. For these kids to get some attention to the program to get something for some of the other kids that went through the tough times is really good."

Never give up, Never give in
We've talked in the past about the progressive development both physically and mentally of this Pioneer team. Against the Vikings, the small steps became a giant leap for the program. The steps are familiar: blowing out an inferior opponent and then holding on against a quality opponent in the Danvers game

This week's progression was to then playing an opponent that was bigger, in a higher division, and hit them in the mouth a little bit and still hanging in there. Mission accomplished.

They faced some adversity for the first time in a close game and came back not once, but three times to take home the win. That is a huge for this team. Knowing that you can get knocked down, but you can still get up to fight and win is a significant sign of maturity for this team.

There were several opportunities for the Pioneers to give up in this one and simply tell themselves that Triton was the better team. But that simply never happened.

The Vikes' super back Brendan O'Neil knocked them upside the head on the first play of the game, rolling for a 38 yard gain. Three plays later, Triton took advantage of the overpursuit of the amped up Pioneers and burned them for a 32 yard TD on a misdirection reverse play. But instead of folding, the Pioneers answered with a vengance on a TD of their own.

Then when it looked like they would have a 10-6 lead at the half, they were burned again on O'Neil's punt return for a score. I don't want to tell you home many times a play like that at the end of a half cratered former Pioneer teams. But it didn't faze this one. Credit them and the coaching staff for now allowing that to happen.

"When they came off the field (after the punt return) some of the heads went down," said Weidman. "We hadn't seen much of  that and I just told them 'hey they scored on a Statue of Liberty and they scored on a punt return. It wasn't like they were absolutely dominating us.' I told them to get their heads up and finish the game off.. But you don't have to tell these kids that much. They want to play. they want to do well. They're tough kids and they're going to play for four quarters no matter what." 

They came out and dominated the third period sucking the life out of the clock on a long drive deep into Triton territy. Ultimately they turned it over twice inside the 15, and that would have crushed lesser teams, but not this team. They hung in and eventually scored the go ahead touchdown anyway.

Their resiliency was to be tested one more time when the Vikes again took the lead with 3:41 to play in the game. My first thought was that Triton had left this Lynnfield offense with too much time. Weidman was confident as well.

"I was thinking to myself that we had had some success moving the ball against them," said the coach. "We did move the ball well at times so I knew we had a chance."

He also knew that they had a kicker in Steve Ullian who had already kicked a 27 yard field goal and was capable of doing it again.

"We could run all of our plays and get down close enough. Sometimes you get into those situations when you have to force the ball downfield (to get into the endzone) and it gets intercepted and we didn't have to do that."

This was truly a "baptism of fire" game and demonstrated a never-say-die attitude that will prove crucial going into the last five league games of the season.

Oops
There was an interesting interlude at the changeover from the third to the fourth quarter in Saturday's game. When Triton picked off the second interception in the endzone near the end of the third quarter, the Vikes' Billy Murphy tried to run it out and got nailed at the one foot line. That meant that Triton needed to get to the 10 yard, 1 ft line for a first down. They ran two plays and got to the seven yard line as the third quarter ended.

As they switched ends, the official in charge of resetting the chains was off by five yards, putting the chain at the five yard 1 ft mark showing that the Vikes had to get to the 15 yard 1 ft line for a first down: in other words third and 9 instead of 3rd and 4 which it was supposed to be. The Triton coaches predictably were apoplectic and the refs finally figured it out and set the chains correctly. It turned out to be a moot point as captain George Hennessey stopped O'Neil for no gain on third down and Triton had to punt.

However I did notice that veteran Lynnfield chain gang member Brian Roberts, father of Nick, was strangely silent during the incident. He didn't appear to be in any hurry to straighten out the kerfuffle. File that one under "home field advantage."

Two way, too much
Speaking of Roberts, he has seen a lot of Lynnfield games from the sideline and called this one "the hardest hitting LHS game he's seen."

The hitting took a toll on players on both teams, but it may have benefited the Pioneers most by wearing down O'Neil, who in addition to being an outstanding running back, is a force on defense getting in on most of the defensive action from his linebacker spot. In the second half, when the Pioneers had over a two to one time of possession advantage, O'Neil had to expend a ton of energy tracking down Pioneer ball carriers. It probably affected his running since he had 92 yards in the first half and only 22 in the second, although the 15 yard run in the final quarter gave them the lead. But in his only two other carries in the fourth quarter he was held for no gain and a two yard gain.


"Honestly it was such a hard fought physical game I think both sides toward the end started to get tired," said Weidman. "It was actually very similar to the Danvers game. Even though it's not that warm out those kids are playing hard on both sides. O'Neil must have carried I don't know how many times and then he has to turn around and make a whole bunch of tackles on defense. He's a real tough kid but eventually you start to get worn down a bit."

Underrated Key Play
Former Pioneer head coach Bill Adams was on hand (more on that later) and he felt Mike Pescione's interception of the lateral on the point after try after O'Neil's punt return was the key play of the game. Adams felt that it stopped the Vikings' momentum and set the tone for the Pioneers' strong third period.

By the way, Pescione was finally tracked down at the 20 yard line and some people wondered why the Pioneers' didn't get the ball right there. It's because as soon as he was tackled, the point after try ended and then Triton had to kick off. If Pescione had made it all the way to the endzone, it would have been two points for the Pioneers.

Anti-Josh
One of the impressive things at the end of the game was the professional way the coaches handled the win. The kids understandably and justifiably were going nuts, but there was no "Josh McDaniel-like" celebration for Weidman and his assistants.

After a few minutes of frenzy, the coaches quickly rounded up the jubiliant Pioneers, had them go through the post game handshake with Triton and settled them down for the post game huddle. They knew that it was a huge win, but they are also aware there is much more work to do to achieve the goals they set for themselves this season.

It's Good!
Ullian's two field goals ties him for the single game record for most FG's in a game. In fact it has been done only once before in LHS history. Former Pioneer captain and coach Joe Maney nailed a pair, ironically also against Triton, in 1983. Coincidently, Maney was on hand Saturday to see Ullian tie his record.

Two is also record for most FG's in a career, held by Maney, Alan Harrington (1972-74), Dave Frontero (1986-87), Hannigan (1991-93) and now Ullian.

There have only been 14 field goals in the history of Lynnfield football, the last one before Saturday coming off the foot of Kevin Hanegan in 1992 against Ipwich.

Pioneer Coaching Legacy
Only six men have ever been head football coach at Lynnfield High. Amazingly, four of them were present at the Pioneers' big win on Saturday. Bill Rodan (1969-1984), Bill Adams (1985-1994, 2000-2007), Scott Brennan (1995-1999) and Neal Weidman (2008-present) were all in attendance. Together they represent the last 41 consecutive seasons of the 52 year history of Pioneer football.

And since Rodan, the winningiest coach in LHS history with 101 victories, coached with Steve Sobiek, the first ever Pioneer coach, the history of Lynnfield coaching from the beginning was represented at the game. And as has been the tradition at LHS, the coaching line is unbroken back to the inception of the program.

Rodan was an assistant with Sobiek; Adams was an assistant with Rodan; and both Brennan and Weidman were assistants under Adams. Together they have been in charge of 411 of the 508 games played by the Pioneers. The only head coaches missing were Sobiek (1958-1966) and Garland Johnson (1967-68).

Pretty impressive.

Enough for now. Check back on Tuesday for a look Around the League.

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