Amesbury Leftovers

Anyone relatively new to following Lynnfield High football should not take yesterday's win for granted. Despite being outplayed, the Pioneers were able to make enough plays to win.

Not too long ago, these were the games Lynnfield routinely lost. That is a credit to how far the program has developed under head coach Neal Weidman. Winning is an attitude and that has much to do with the way the Pioneers were able to pull out a win that probably should have been a loss.

Which is not to say the head coach was very happy with the way his squad played.

"We were out there too long," he said after the game. "They made too many first downs. Did we run an offensive play in the second half?"

Weidman was being facetious but he wasn't far off. The Pioneers ran ZERO offensive plays in the third quarter and nine overall in the second half.

"The defense made the plays when they needed to, but we have to get off the field on third down," Weidman continued. "We're not doing a good job that way. Too many third and shorts and too many big plays on third and long."

Amesbury was 6 for 13 on third down and 2 for 5 on fourth down. The three misses on fourth down came at the Lynnfield one yard line, 21 and on the final play of the game.

I asked the coach if Amesbury was doing anything special to allow them to run up nearly 400 yards of offense.

"They were blocking us," he deadpanned.

But he did give credit to the Amesbury running game which features waves of backs coming at you.

"They're good," Weidman said. "They run the wing T and they run it well. They're young but you can tell they have kids that are into it."

The Indians had four runners with over 50 yards. Quarterback Matt Talbot (82), Delante Castle (65 and two TD's), CJ Collin (60) and Stephan Deas (58). Fullback Perry Mroz had 36 and sophmore Ben Cullen had 28. That's a lot of production.

That explains why they were able to hold the ball three times as long as the Pioneers Saturday.

"It was ridiculous," said Weidman. "We've got to get off the field on defense. We've got to figure that out."

I asked Amesbury head coach Thom Connors how they were able to run so well against the Pioneers.

"We think we have a good running game," Connors told me. "We stick with it. We practice it a lot. It's pretty simple. We were just able to move the ball. They were giving us  a few things that we were able to take advantage of."

Weidman wasn't too happy with his offense either.

"We dropped two passes that should have been touchdowns," he said. "We are not capitalizing when we need to. They were begging us to throw. They were covering three guys with two. We can't drop bubble passes. It was there. Either we dropped it or we're running 30 yards down the sideline and then we get a holding call. That type of stuff will drive you crazy. We had a chance to put it away, but for some reason we weren't able to do it."

So as poorly as the Pioneers played and as productive as Amesbury was moving the ball, how did the Indians not win?

"We made crucial mistakes,"said Connors, "and when you make crucial mistakes to a good football team, this is what happens. And (Lynnfield) is a good football team. Neal does a great job with them. They're well coached and disciplined. We just made big mistakes when we couldn't afford to."

Bottom line, the Pioneers dodged a bullet and got the win. Learn from it and move on.

Going for Two?
When the Indians scored early in the fourth quarter, some were wondering if Connors should have gone for the two point conversion to take the lead.

"I thought about going for two at that point," Connors told me. "It was nine minutes left and we were doing a pretty good job of stopping them. We'd only given them one touchdown on a blown coverage."

He could have added that the Lynnfield defense wasn't exactly stopping the Amesbury offense.

The other factor may have been that although the Indians averaged 5.3 yards per carry against Lynnfield, the Pioneer defense did stop Amesbury for one yard or less 15 times up to that point. That included the huge goal line stand on the Indians' opening drive.

As it turns out, Tyler Palumbo threw a monkey wrench into Amesbury's plans with the winning play, sneaking through to block the PAT.

Karmic Payback
The Pioneers have now beaten Amesbury three straight times and in two of the three, they were outplayed by the Indians and won the game on similar plays.

"(A. J. Gallo's) fumble return won us the game," Weidman said. "It was like two years ago when Timmy (Lamusta) returned one for a touchdown. Without that we lose that game. They outplayed us today and they outplayed us two years ago when we won. But that's how this series has been. Whoever has played the worst has won.

"When they won the Super Bowl (in 2008) we outplayed them up there and lost 13-12. We played them the year before that and outplayed them and lost 20-15," he said.

"Next year both of the coach's strategies will be to play worse than the other team and you'll win," Weidman joked. "It's unbelievable."

Yesterday's game was eeriely familiar to the 2008 game that Weidman referred to. In that game three years ago, Amesbury was on the way to a Super Bowl Championship and the Pioneers were struggling through a 3-8 year in Weidman's first season.

The Pioneers dominated time of possession two to one, had more total yards 290-193, more first downs 16-7 and double the plays 64-32.

Gino Cohee, then a sophomore, scored touchdowns of six and four yards to give the Pioneers a 12-0 half time lead. Amesbury cut it to 12-7 early in the third period and then won it when quarterback Jared Flannigan sprung lose on a 63 TD run in the middle of the fourth quarter.

Looks like yesterday's win was a payback from the football gods.

The Play That Almost Wasn't
The Pioneers' first TD was a pretty 93 yarder from Mike Karavetsos to Jonathan Rogers, but it came perilously close to never happening.

After the Pioneers outstanding goal line stand, which not only kept the Indians out of the endzone, but prevented them from getting a first down at the one yard line, Lynnfield took over on the one.

On the first play from scrimmage following the stand, Karavetsos carried up the middle. The ball was shaken loose and it looked like a disastrous turnover deep in Pioneer territory.

But Karavetsos dived into the pile and came up with the recovery. Two plays later, Karavetsos and Rogers hooked up for the long distance TD.

Rogers Out?
Speaking of Rogers, Weidman said after the game that he may be out for the year with a torn ligament in his thumb.

That would be a shame. This was a break out game for the senior who is in his first year playing for the Pioneers. He had four receptions for 136 yards against Amesbury and was looking like a real threat.

Hopefully he will be able to return to the lineup at some point.

Warned by Waisnor
In my preview post of the Amesbury game I noted that the Pioneers would be trying to stop the run to put the ball in the hands of inexperienced quarterback Matt Talbot and force him to beat them with the passing game.

Shortly after I posted, I received an email from the Voice of the Pioneers, Tom Waisnor, with the ominous subject line "Beware Matt Talbot."

In his message, Tom stated, "This might sound funny, but when Matt Talbot was 12, he single handedly defeated our youth football team and ended our 23 game unbeaten streak. (This team is currently the juniors). I have video...this kid could throw. I still have nightmares."

Well the Pioneers did force the ball into Talbot's hands, but instead of throwing it, he ended up running with it picking up huge chunks of yardage running outside. Talbot turned out to be the Indians' leading running back with 82 yards on 15 carries. He was fairly pedestrian throwing, completing five of 11 for 39 yards.

You can sleep well for another year Tom. But Talbot is only a junior so we'll see him again next season.

Still Impressed
I asked Connors after the game how he thought the Pioneers looked compared to last year.

"They do a good job running that offense," he replied. "They're young and learning it. They were a well oiled machine last year so were a lot tougher to play. But we have battles with them all the time. Obviously they graduated some great kids. But they're coming. They're going to win football games. They're a good team."

Notable
- Junior Alex Roper nailed two more PAT's, one of them the game winner, and is now four for four on the season.
- Amesbury was forced to punt only once all game
- This was the Pioneers' first one point victory since 2006 when they edged Hull 8-7 at the Middle School field.
- Gallo's fumble recovery for a touchdown was the first since Tim Lamusta's against Amesbury in 2009.
- The Pioneers did not get their initial first down until midway in the second period. They finished with only six first downs
- The Pioneers are now 23-15-1 against Amesbury all time. They have outscored the Indians 589-580.
- The Lynnfield defense has now given up 642 yards in two games, 447 on the ground and 195 passing. They have allowed 37 first downs and have lost the time of possession battle by exactly a two to one margin - 58:40 to 29:20

Campus Update
Former Pioneer captains Gino Cohee and A. J. Roberto found themselves on opposite sidelines for the first time ever Saturday afternoon when Merrimack College hosted Pace University in North Andover.

Unfortunately for Cohee, his Setters took it on the chin as the Warriors romped 63-7. Roberto was credited with one unassisted tackle for Merrimack who improved to 2-1. Cohee didn't make it into the stat column. The Setters are now 1-2

Meanwhile down in Milton, another former Pioneer captain Jeff Gannon is seeing action for the 2-1 Curry College Colonels. According to dad Mike, Gannon is being used primarily as a blocking fullback. He has carried twice for net five yards.

OD's Run
And its not too early to start thinking about participating in OD's Run which will be held this Sunday, September 25 at 10 am.

The annual 5K memorial road race and walk is held to raise funds for scholarships awarded in memory of Johnny "OD" O'Donnell. Johnny is a former Pioneer football player and this event is a tribute to his short life.

For more information contact Karen Mahon at (508) 528-1286, odsrunwalk@comcast.net or www.odsrunwalk.weebly.com.

That's it for now. Check back tomorrow night when I take a look around the league.