Pioneers Impress Against Northeast

The Pioneers surely have more work to do, but they are clearly rounding into shape as evidenced by a strong performance against Northeast Regional Voc in their annual Labor Day weekend scrimmage yesterday.

After a sluggish start on defense, the Pioneers awoke with a vengeance and when the dust had cleared, Lynnfield had dismantled the defending Division 4A Super Bowl champs by a score of 30-0.

"They're expecting to have a good year this season," Weidman said of the Knights. "I thought their line was fantastic. They were big. Both their offensive and defensive lines were good."

That showed in NE's opening drive which began on their own 12 yard line. They picked up three first downs on the drive, but stalled at their own 40 thanks to a sack by captain A. J. Roberto and a nice tackle by captain Jeff Gannon.

After a poor NE punt, the Pioneer offense cranked it up from their own 48. They picked up a pair of first downs, the big one a 24 yard completion on fourth down from captain Gino Cohee to captain Steve Ullian. Cohee hit Ricky Berardino for a 20 yard TD strike to open the scoring. Ullian added the PAT for a 7-0 Lynnfield lead.


The second NE drive started on their own 19 and they made steady progress against the Lynnfield defense. They picked up 5 first downs and got it down inside the Pioneer 20, but a critical tripping penalty nullified the gain and pushed the Knights out of scoring range. Time ran out in the half with the Pioneers leading 7-0.

"We only got the ball once in the first half," Weidman said. "Obviously they held on to the ball way too long on the first two series. But after that I think defensively we kind of picked it up a little bit and started to figure out what we were doing."

Lynnfield started the second half from their own 29 and again was able to move the ball against a good Knight defense. On the first play of the half Cohee and A. J. Roberto hooked up on a 45 yard pass that got the ball to the NE 26. One play later Cohee ran it to the 11. Gannon then ran it in from there. Ullian added another point after and the Pioneers led 14-0.


Ullian's kick then pinned the Knights on their own 5 yard line. On the first play of the drive, Jon Roberto broke through and sacked the quarterback for a safety to give the Pioneers a 16-0 lead.

Early in the fourth period D. J. DeGeorge recovered a fumble at midfield starting another scoring drive. Cohee capped this one with a 5 yard run. The pass for two was incomplete but the Pioneers led 22-0.

That was pretty much it for the varsity, but the jayvees added another score late in the fourth on some heads up scrambling by sophomore quarterback Michael Karavetsos. The defense nearly sacked Karavetsos but he escaped and found a wide open Mike Soden in the endzone for the score. Freshman Kyle McGah bulled his way in for the two point conversion to account for the final score.

Weidman was impressed with some of the younger guys in the scrimmage.

"Some of those guys are starting to come along which is nice to see," he said.

The next live action for the Pioneers will come in their opening game this Friday at 7 pm at Manchester Essex. I'll have a preview of that game here on Thursday. You can also catch my preview article on the Pioneers' 2010 season in the Villager on Wednesday. If you haven't yet subscribed, you can do so by clicking on the link to the Villager subscription form on the left. Just $19 and you can have all the action delivered right to your mailbox..

I will probably be posting before Thursday with more info of interest so keep checking back.