The Thanksgiving Day game against North Reading wasn't overly exciting as the Pioneers were clearly the superior team. However, the scrappy Hornets tried to make a game of it. Although North Reading was either in the lead or within a score of the Pioneers for almost 35 of the 40 minute contest, did you ever really feel like Lynnfield was in danger of losing this one?
Me neither.
Which is not to say that the Hornets didn't play hard and make the Pioneers fight for the victory.
"They made it tough, but they played tough all year," said Pioneer head coach Neal Weidman after the game. "They had some close games against some good teams. They barely lost to quite a few teams including the winner of our league (HW) who they lost to by a point."
Hornet head coach Jeff Wall pulled out all the stops in trying to spring the upset, going so far as to install some Wing T plays in his offense.
When asked if he put those in as a result of something he saw in the Lynnfield/Hamilton Wenham film, where the Generals had some success running the inside counters with running back Trevor Lyons, Wall replied with a smile.
"We saw a couple of counters from the Hamilton Wenham game and a couple of Ipswich counters so we said let's try that knowing they were going to key on Nick (Rosano) a lot. We thought we could get something cutting back. We tried."
"We hadn't seen any of that," Weidman said of the Wing T plays. "They hadn't done it all year. This week they obviously took the extra time to put in some new stuff."
The Hornets' game plan was to stuff the run and make the Pioneers beat them with their passing game and that's exactly what happened.
"They played man coverage the whole game," Weidman said. "It was what we thought they would do. We wanted to run it enough to stay honest and we knew we were going to have to get big plays in the passing game."
In the end, the Pioneers picked up 260 yards of offense, 99 rushing but 161 through the air including three Gino Cohee touchdown passes.
QB Ratings
Speaking of Cohee, he played an outstanding final game, completing 6 of 11 for 161 yards with three TD's and no interceptions. I got to thinking about how to measure that performance and decided to try and use the NFL's quarterback rating to see how Cohee's game measured up. I located the formula and plugged in the numbers and came up with a QB rating of 139.2 for Cohee against North Reading. A perfect rating is 158.3.
Just for context, this year's leading NFL ratings so far are Micheal Vick (108.7), Tom Brady (105.8), Philip Rivers (105.0) and Ben Roethlisberger (101.9).
People always talk about how complicated the formula is (it is trust me) but that's what Excel is for. Some of the calculations are incomprehensible but at the heart of it, the formula accounts for completion percentage, yards gained per attempt, touchdown passes per attempt and interceptions per attempt.
Now putting that kind of information into the hands of a stat geek like me is dangerous. So once I had the formula, I decided to see what Cohee's rating was for the entire year. Seeing as he threw a record setting 17 TD's with only six interceptions, I figured it had to be high and it was. He came in with a 99.1 for the season. The next step was calculating his four year career rating which came in at 87.95.
So the next step was seeing how those ratings stacked up against other Pioneer quarterbacks of the past. Now I only have yardage stats since I have been covering the Pioneers which goes back to 1989. In those 22 seasons, there have been only five in which a Lynnfield quarterback has thrown for over 1000 yards. They are Chris Grassi in 2007 (1437 yards), Cohee this year (1347 yards), Jason Caggiano in 1996 (1199 yards), Cohee last year (1087 yards) and Luke Kimball in 2001 (1060 yards).
I took those five seasons and plugged them into the formula and Cohee took the top two spots with a 99.13 rating this year and 84.5 rating last year. Caggiano was third with a 63.9 in 1996, Kimball was fourth with a 61.3 in 2001 and Grassi was fifth in 2007 with a 51.9.
Here is the final stat line for each:
- Cohee 2010: 74/154, 1347 yards, 17 TD's, 6 Int's, QB rating 99.1
- Cohee 2009: 79/146, 1087 yards, 9 TD's, 5 Int's, QB rating 84.5
- Caggiano 1996: 78/159, 1199 yards, 10 TD's, 12 Int's, QB rating 63.9
- Kimball 2001: 60/159, 1060 yards, 10 TD's, 8 Int's, QB rating 61.3
- Grassi 2007: 117/237, 1493 yards, 10 TD's, 18 Int's, QB rating 51.9
While we're on the topic of quarterbacks, this would be a good time to discuss North Reading signal caller Nick Rosano. The gutsy, elusive QB showed why the Hornets turned competitive after he was installed at quarterback following North Reading's third game of the season.
Rosano was pretty much the Hornet offense against the Pioneers. Of 55 total offensive plays, Rosano triggered 42 of them. He carried 25 times for 125 yards and completed 9 of 16 passes for 38 yards. NR's first drive of the game consisted of 16 plays. Rosano carried 13 times and threw two short completions on the drive. He plowed in for the touchdown from the one for the Hornets only score.
He took matters into his own hands to a new level in the closing minute when he actually completed a pass to himself. His throw was blocked but it was batted right back to him. It goes into the books as a completed pass and a pass reception for minus seven yards.
"Any time he has the ball in his hands, something special can happen," Wall said of his senior QB.
Late in the game Rosano was racked up and suffered an ankle injury. He went to the sideline, got taped up, with the help of Pioneer trainer Sean Roach, and insisted on going back out despite the fact that the game was out of hand.
"He told me 'I'm not coming out,'" Wall said. "so you can't argue with that."
The Pioneers did a better job of controlling Rosano after that first drive.
"The defensive ends were a little overagressive (on the first drive)," said Weidman. "We told them if they come unblocked we wanted them to read the hands of the quarterback. Guys were a little fired up so after that first drive they made the adjustments. That's what we worked on in practice during the week. Then we started to make some good plays after that."
Big Day for A.J.
It was a full plate for Pioneer co-captain A. J. Roberto on Thanksgiving Day.
He started with an appetizer by breaking through and blocking Eric Valenti's extra point try following the Hornet's opening drive touchdown.
From there he moved to the main course course with a beautiful catch and run over the middle to complete a 47 yard touchdown play for the Pioneers' first score.
He finished up with dessert by recovering a fumble early in the second half.
And he seasoned the whole thing with his usual array of hits and tackles.
All in all, a pretty impressive way to end his high school career.
High Efficiency
The Hornets' game plan clearly was to eat up clock and keep the ball away from the Pioneers' high powered offense. They accomplished that by winning the time of possession battle by a two to one margin (25:47 to 14:13). The problem for North Reading, was that the Pioneers made the most of those precious moments when they had the ball.
Breaking it down, the Pioneers averaged one point for every 41 seconds of possession. They accumulated 260 yards of offense, or one yard every three seconds of possession.
Emotionally Involved
It didn't take long for tempers to flare in the emotional battle between the rivals. The boys scuffled on the opening kick and the result was a 15 yard personal foul against North Reading which pinned them inside the 15 to start their opening drive.
There were no more extracurricular activities after that, but the hitting within the game was certainly fierce.
Punt Returned
Senior Rick Berardino appeared to have his second punt return touchdown of the year early in the second period when he broke one for 71 yards. Unfortunately, the Pioneers were flagged for blocking below the waist nullifying the TD.
"He may have blocked below the waist," Weidman said of the unnamed Pioneer blocker. "It was close. He didn't completely cut him but when he blocked him he kind of turned and went low and was on his thighs a little bit."
Trick Kick
Co-captain Steve Ullian has obliterated all of the Lynnfield school records for placekicking finishing with 75 career PAT's more than twice the previous record. He also booted 34 extra points this year, four better than his record setting 30 last year.
However, Ullian's punting has also been a key factor in the Pioneers' success, something rival coach Wall was keenly aware of.
"Any time you can change the field position like that it's unbelievable," Wall said.
Ullian capped off his high school kicking career with a great play in the second period. The snap sailed over his head, but Ullian calmly went back, retrieved the ball and still punted it cleanly. He got a great roll and the result was a 32 yard kick with no return, pinning the Hornets at their own 14 yard line.
"That play was great," Weidman said. "It was a very athletic play. To be honest with you, if we have two guys that can punt and if one guy can punt it a little bit further but the other guy is a little more athletic, I'll go with the guy that's a little more athletic. A punt is a big play obviously for field position. You can't just put anyone back there."
Home Sweet Home
After the game, Weidman was reminded that he was still undefeated, a perfect 3-0, in Thankgiving Day games.
"Yes I am," he said with a smile. "But we also haven't lost at home and that's a big thing. We protect our field, our home turf. We'd like to keep that going."
The Pioneer win was their 12th straight home victory and completes two straight seasons without a home loss. Their last loss at Pioneer field came in November 2008 against Manchester Essex.
As a symbol of protecting their home field, following the game, the Pioneers joined hands and stretched across the entire field and proceeded to walk the length of it. They ended by diving into the endzone.
That has become a tradition for the Pioneers as they did the same thing last year following their last home game against Hamilton Wenham.
What Might Have Been
Not to reopen a sore subject, but looking at the final results from Thanksgiving Day kind of makes the Hamilton Wenham loss somewhat easier to take. As things turned out, even if the Pioneers had held on for the win, they still wouldn't be going to the postseason.
Let's say they had beaten the Generals 15-13 and then went on to beat North Reading as they did. The Pioneers would have finished the CAL Small season with a 5-1 record.
Hamilton Wenham handled Ipswich on Thanksgiving Day 20-8 so they would have finished at 5-1 as well.
But the crusher would have come in Newburyport, where the Clippers ripped Amesbury 26-0 which would have given them a 5-1 mark as well.
The first tiebreaker in that three way tie is head to head play. The Pioneers would have beaten H-W, H-W beat Newburyport and Newburyport beat the Pioneers. Still tied. On to the next tiebreaker which is points allowed in games among the three tied teams.
The Pioneers would have allowed 37 points (24 to the Clippers and 13 to H-W). The Generals allowed 22 points (7 to Newburyport and 15 to Lynnfield) and Newburyport allowed 21 points (14 to H-W and 7 to Lynnfield) so the Clippers would be going to the post season by that one point difference in points allowed.
So it wasn't the Hamilton Wenham game that ultimately ended the Pioneers' championship hope, but that 24-7 loss in Newburyport.
"I'm not going to lie to you," Weidman said after the North Reading game when asked to look back at what might have been. "The Newburyport game we didn't play well. They outplayed us. the Hamilton Wenham game is the one we'd like to have back because we played well enough to win and we just didn't. We had a chance to put them away and we didn't do that.
"But you have two choices," Weidman went on. "You either dwell on it, which we did for a few days, or you move forward and we did that. Eventually you have to get over it otherwise you keep beating yourself up forever."
That's why the win over North Reading was so important. It not only ended the season on a positive note, but sets the right tone going into next season.
On The Flip Side
Of course if Pioneer fans start to feel too depressed over the way the season played out, they only had to look across the field on Thanksgiving morning to see some real pain on the other side of the coin.
The Hornets struggled through another losing season, finishing 1-9 with five or six tough luck losses. NR's Wall and his staff should be given a lot of credit for keeping his team up and competitive for the entire season as they appeared never to quit.
"I'm frustrated for the kids," Wall said after the game. "Because when you see how hard they play and you can't get them a win it hurts to see the look in the seniors' eyes. Knowing that they've shown more heart than any other team I've coached and yet they don't have the wins to show for it. I know they'll be better off in life for how hard they worked, but it would have been nice to get them a couple of wins."
Senior Sendoff
Weidman was asked after the game to reflect on this year's senior class.
"We're going to miss them obviously," Weidman said. "That's the worst part about coaching. You have to say goodbye to the guys. We're lucky as coaches because every year you get to come back and the seniors that leave don't. I remember my last high school game and my last college game. It's a little bit of an empty feeling. It takes a little while to get used to."
Turkey Toss
Finally, for those who may have missed it, Lynnfield participated in the annual Kiss 108 Turkey Toss at the Meadow Glen Mall in Medford on the day before Thanksgiving. The event is hosted by Matt Siegel and Lynnfield's own Billy Costa. Mike Lynch of Channel 5 was also on hand.
Teams of two players each throw and catch a 20 lb turkey as far as they can and the team that gets the longest distance wins. The turkey has to be caught for the throw to count.
The Pioneers were represented by co-captain Steve Ullian and Craig Cataldo. Cataldo was the thrower and Ullian the reciever and the pair came up with the third best throw at the time of their performance. Ullian made a nifty catch and spiked the turkey.
Unfortunately, they came up short to Arlington who won in an overtime throw battle with Everett.
For those who may have missed it, here is a link to the event.
Lynnfield comes on for their throw at the 7:30 mark and then at the 22:50 mark the turkey disappears and Lynnfield is accused of taking it! Only those in attendance knows if that accusation is true.
That's it for now. I'll be back with a post sometime after the banquet on December12th.
In the meantime, make sure to pick up a copy of this week's Villager. I will have my complete game story and photos, all the game statistics as well as an article on the record setting career of Gino Cohee.
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