Manchester-Essex Leftovers

You can read my complete game story along with my photos in the Villager on Wednesday, but in the meantime, here are some extra points from Friday's 37-6 win at Manchester.

Proceed With Caution
No doubt the beating the Pioneers administered on Friday night was satisfying. For a first game with mostly new starters, the squad looked good in many areas. However, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

M-E is a very young, very inexperienced team that was destined to fall off from their 9-2 squad of last season. Losing Alex Carr, the key to their whole offense to an ankle injury, made the Hornets' task of upsetting the Pioneers almost impossible. Although sophomore Cory Burnham did a credible job under the circumstances (10 for 17 for 115 yards and a touchdown) it was obvious this game was a mismatch. And you even have to add an asterisk to Burnham's numbers since half those yards - 64 to be exact - came in the fourth quarter when he was still operating the Hornet's first team against the Lynnfield JV's.

Although Pioneer head coach Neal Weidman was happy with the win, he knows there is work to be done.

"The first part of the year it is going to be everything," the coach responded when I asked him after the game what his team needs to work on. "We missed a couple of tackles and you can't do that. I'll have to watch the film but I'm guessing that on some of the plays that were negative I'm sure there were assignments blown. And you can always get better at blocking."

Weidman was pleased with how hard the Pioneers hit and how physical they were throughout the contest.

"We need to be physical," he said. "That's obviously a plus."

Weidman was also happy with the offense, especially the air attack.

"We did some good things in the passing game," he said. "They gave us some things where they were keeping guys in the box knowing that we like to run the ball. Keeping some guys in tight made it possible for us to take advantage of some other matchups. We have some nice weapons to go to. It makes it easier to call plays when you have guys to get the ball too. We were able to spread it out and hopefully that is going to be our strength. We have different guys we can go to at different times. We don't want to become predictable."

So all in all, it was a good start, but understand the true tests are still to come.

Just For Starters
The Pioneers' win was their third straight opening game victory. Weidman is 3-0 in openers.

Prior to 2008, the Pioneers had lost 11 straight opening games and 13 of 14 going back to 1994. Their overall record in first games is now 30-23.

Streaking
The win, Lynnfield's first ever against M-E after losses in 2007 and 2008, extends the Pioneers' regular season winning streak to nine. Including the playoff game last year, the Pioneers have now won 13 of their last 16 games. They won only 6 of their previous 51 games prior to that stretch going back to 2004.

Baking Some Turnovers
The hard hitting Pioneers forced four turnovers in Friday night's game. Captain Gino Cohee, Tim Shannon and Mike Thomas all recovered fumbles and Rick Berardino picked off an interception.

"They've been good all preseason and they were good again tonight," Weidman responded when asked about the performance of his secondary. "They were getting after the ball. They were ball hawking and it's good. I think we may have had years when I don't know if we forced four turnovers all season and we had four tonight. That's something we've been emphasizing the last two years both going after the football and stripping it and being more aggressive when the ball is in the air."

The coach was speaking with tongue-in-cheek when talking about the low number of turnovers Lynnfield teams have created in the past but he wasn't far off. In 2008 the Pioneers had only 11 turnovers and in 2002 they took the ball away from opponents only eight times.

The four takeaways Friday night was the most for Lynnfield since they forced three fumbles and picked off two interceptions against Triton last year in that exciting 21-19 win.

"Swiss"
Back in the day, Steeler quarterback Kordell Stewart was nicknamed "Slash" because he lined up at quarterback/running back/wideout.

It may be time to hang the nickname "Swiss" on captain Steve Ullian since he has become the Pioneers' Swiss Army Knife. Not only is he the Pioneer's record setting placekicker, but this year he is also starting on defense, catching passes (he had 4 for 71 yards Friday night), returning punts and kickoffs as well as kicking off and punting.

"We ask him to do a lot," Weidman said.

As for his placekicking, Ullian began the process of adding to the career records he set last season. His 26 yard field goal raises the school career mark for field goals to four and his four points after lifts the record for PAT's to 45.

He has now kicked 13 consecutive PAT's. The last time Ullian failed to convert was on a bad snap in the rain in Ipswich last season and before that he had one blocked against Newburyport. You have to go all the way back to last year's Cathedral game to find Ullian's last actual missed point after.

Up The Charts
Speaking of the Pioneer record book, Cohee stepped up another rung on the ladder with his three TD passes against the Hornets.

That ties a Lynnfield High record for most TD passes in a game. Cohee joins Luke Kimball (vs Wilmington in 2001), Kris Borkowski (vs Hamilton-Wenham in 1998) and Steve Olsen (vs Lincoln Sudbury in 1972, vs Hamilton Wenham in 1973 and vs Triton in 1973) who also performed the hat trick.

Cohee's three scoring tosses gives him 16 for his career and lifts him past Steve Mucica (15 from 1960-62) into fourth place all time. Olsen leads the pack having thrown 23 six pointers from 1971-73.

Cramping Their Style
Some hearts went aflutter on several occasions during the game when at various times Ullian, captain Jeff Gannon and junior Jon Roberto fell to the ground grabbing their legs. Turns out they were only suffering from leg cramps.

"I guess they all have to condition more," Weidman quipped after the game.

Fresh Faces
One of the less appreciated but key results of a lopsided win like Friday night's is the ability to get some younger players game action. M-E helped the cause by leaving in their regulars while Weidman put in his JV's to play the fourth quarter. That gave the youngsters some valuable varsity experience against first teamers.

"We did see some of the younger guys," Weidman said. "And you know what, some of those guys stepped up."

Particularly impressive was freshman Kyle McGah who figured in two exciting plays. They youngster scored the Pioneers' final touchdown exploding for a 33 yard touchdown run.

McGah also capitalized on a broken play a few plays earlier. With Ullian cramping up, McGah went in to punt from the Pioneer 43 but the snap and catch was muffed forcing McGah to run for it. The freshman broke free, made the first down and actually got the ball inside the Hornet 20 but a holding penalty nullified the play.

"He's going to be a nice little player we think," the coach said. "He's got to keep working at it and keep getting better. That was an all young line that he was running behind on that touchdown and that was a nice hole that those guys opened up."

McGah then got off a 29 yard punt that glanced off the Hornet punt returner. Thomas recovered for the Pioneers at the M-E 42 ultimately setting up McGah's TD run.

Top 100?
Last week Boston.com put out their Preseason Top 100 EMass football rankings. Curiously, your Lynnfield Pioneers did not make the list. Even more curious were some of the teams that did make it ahead of the Pioneers.

Northeast Regional, who the Pioneers crushed in their preseason scrimmage was ranked 54th and Manchester Essex was listed at 58th. Not only were those schools listed ahead of Lynnfield, they were also ranked higher than Wilmington (#71), Swampscott (#73) and Masco (#78).

Methinks they need to recalibrate their dartboard.

True or False
Friday night's game was the third straight for the Pioneers on FieldTurf  going back to Thanksgiving Day on North Reading's new field and the playoff against Austin Prep at Reading High.

"The kids love it," Weidman said. "They say 'Coach I feel so fast." I tell them so does the other team."

Playing on turf recalls the line from eccentric former Red Sox pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee who was once asked if he preferred grass or artificial turf. His response? "I don't know. I never smoked artificial turf."

That's it for now. Check back on Tuesday when I recap the  weekend action around the Cape Ann Small.