Friday night's game against St. Mary's was just what he had in mind when he toughened up the first six weeks of the Pioneers' season.
Yes taking a 40-16 beating is never enjoyable, and it's a lot more fun trouncing Cathedral 40-0. However, as we saw last year, waltzing through weaker opponents is not always the best thing for a team.
When the Pioneers were trying to turn around a program that had suffered through too many lopsided defeats to schools with double Lynnfield's enrollment like Masco and North Andover, putting some lighter weight opponents on the slate made sense. Confidence had to be built. The team had to learn how to win.
However, the Lynnfield program under Weidman is way past that stage. The seniors on this team have known pretty much nothing but success. Even after Friday night's loss, the Pioneers's record since 2009 is 21-6 with a league championship and a playoff appearance under their belt. They should be able to handle a loss like this to a quality opponent and learn from it.
And trying to keep up with a powerhouse like St. Mary's will do a lot more to prepare the Pioneers for upcoming tough league games against Hamilton-Wenham and North Reading than a five touchdown win over an overmatched opponent.
You can read my full game account in the Villager on Wednesday, but there are some observations about the game we should look at.
"Hopefully our game speed improved as a result of playing them," Weidman said. "We did start flying around a bit."
And despite the final score, there were some encouraging signs.
"At times we played it pretty well with what we were trying to do," Weidman said of the Spartans' dangerous Double Wing offense. "Everytime we squeezed the hole they were trying to run to they just took it in a little tighter. Those backs are real good. It doesn't matter how you play it they'll just take it in a hole sooner and they get right down hill on you. They don't need much. They jump over the pile. They're at three yards before you even bat an eye."
You could see the Pioneers struggling to keep up at the start of the game. The offense sputtered and the defense was clearly on its heels. But eventually Lynnfield got back into the rhythm of the game. After falling behind 24-0 early in the second, the Pioneers began to regroup.
"We tried to keep it a game there for a little while," said Weidman. "If we had gotten a stop and maybe another score, we might have been able to make it a little more interesting but we didn't."
After falling into that three touchdown hole, the Pioneers began to match St. Mary's scoring once at the end of the half and then on their first possession of the second half.
"I think we would have scored again if not for the fumble there at the end," Weidman said. "I felt if we picked up another score there and we got the two point conversion it would be 32-24 then we try an onside kick."
St. Mary's coach Matt Durgin was impressed with the play of the Pioneers.
"I thought Lynnfield played very tough," he told Bill Newell of Moorestuffonline.com. "They made us earn this win. They played right to the end. The score was not indicative of the game."
But the Pioneers could never get the stop they needed and ultimately, that was their downfall in this one.
Solid Peformance from Karavetsos
Junior quarterback Mike Karavetsos continues to improve and had another solid night against St. Mary's. His 12 for 19, 145 yard, 2 TD, 0 interception game earned him an impressive passer rating of 121.6 for the game (using the NFL formula). It was his second straight two TD pass game. He also carried eight times for 25 yards and a two point conversion.
For the year, Karavetsos is now 30 for 56 (54%) with 530 yards, 5 TD's, two 2 pt conversions and 3 interceptions. His passer rating for the four games is 93.6.
Just for fun, I plugged in the 1 for 2, 3 yards, 0 interception performance of Spartan quarterback Jonathan Capano to get his passer rating. The result: 56.5. Of course with running backs like Todd Collier and Cory Donahue, why would he EVER throw.
Night and Day
Since the 2009 season, the Pioneers have played nine night games out of the 27 played (33%). They are 5-4 (.555 winning percentage) in those contests. By contrast, their day game record is 16-2 (.888). Of course the night losses might have something to do with the competition rather than the lights. Those four losses, which represents 67% of all Lynnfield losses since the beginning of 2009, were to Wilmington, Austin Prep in the playoff game, Newburyport last year and St. Mary's Friday night. The only two Pioneer day game losses were to Hamilton-Wenham last year and Newburyport in this year's opener.
While on the topic of splits, the Pioneers are 13-1 at home since 2009, 8-4 on the road, and 0-1 on a neutral field. Again, level of competition comes into play. The road and neutral field losses were to Wilmington, Newburyport, Hamilton-Wenham, St. Mary's and Austin Prep. The Pioneers are currently in the midst of a three game road losing streak which they will look to snap this week in Danvers.
As for league and non league, the Pioneers are 10-2 in league play with their only losses coming to Newburyport and Hamilton Wenham last season. They are 11-4 in non league play. The losses were to Wilmington, Austin Prep, Newburyport this season, and St. Mary's.
Forward Looking
There is no disputing the effectiveness of St. Mary's powerful running attack. They ran the ball 53 times, not counting the two kneel downs at the end. Of those, the Spartans were held to zero or negative yardage only once and that was for negative 1 yard.
Part of that is the scheme, but most of it is the talent of the running backs.
"Typically when they run super toss between guard and tackle, a few times we squeezed it doing what we were supposed to do taking on the pullers right at the guard and they just jumped over the center and went there instead," explained Weidman. "They're good."
Carpal Tunnel
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know that I tweet in-game updates. Between charting the game and taking photos, I am only able to text scoring updates and I have to do that between the time the touchdown is scored and the ball is then kicked off.
The way the Pioneers have been scoring these past few years, I've had to get pretty quick on the keyboard to keep pace.
This year has been even more challenging with the success of quarterback Mike Karavetsos as you might imagine. When he connected with Steve Yobaccio Friday night for the Pioneers' second score I almost fainted. YOU try typing "Karavetsos to Yobaccio 9 yard pass" quickly. Then Mike hit Dan Ashwell for the two point conversion adding another quick typing challenge.
"Roper kick" is a lot easier.
I think I'm going to have to utilize "Quick Text" better.
Going For It
I asked the coach why he decided to go for it on fourth and five from the Spartan 46 at the end of the first period trailing 8-0.
"You have to score with them," Weidman explained. "You can't give them the ball back. We didn't make them punt. Unless you're pinned deep you have to make hay while the sun shines when you have the ball. We knew we were going to have to try and score with them."
Rare Two Pointers
St. Mary's nearly always goes for the two point conversion after touchdowns which they did five times Friday night. That forced the Pioneers to keep Alex Roper's PAT toe on the sideline after Lynnfield's two scores just to keep pace.
The Pioneers converted both times, the first on a Karavetsos rush and the second when the quarterback found Dan Ashwell with a pass. It was the first time in over 20 years that Lynnfield picked up two or more two point conversions in a game.
The last time it happened was in 1990 when quarterback Chris Sutera ran one in and then hit running back Steve Migliero for another in a 16-13 win over Masconomet.
Injury Bug
A growing concern is the spate of injuries that are beginning to add up for the Pioneers. The latest was a shoulder injury to tri-captain Mike Thomas that kept him out of most of the second half.
Player loss is starting to affect the defense as well. Sophomore Matt Kramich, who has been a special teams standout so far this year, saw a good deal of action at linebacker in the second half.
"We're down," Weidman explained. "No (Jonathan) Rogers, no (Jacob) Landess. (Kramich) is the next guy in. That's where we are at. He'll do a good job. He's going to be a good player."
Notable:
- Karavetsos' TD pass to Yobaccio in the third period was the 275th touchdown pass in the history of the Lynnfield High football.
- Only three penalties were called in the game for a total of 20 yards. One offsides call on the Pioneers and a holding call and a motion call against St. Mary's.
- Not surprisingly, the Spartans dominated time of possession, holding the ball twice as long as the Pioneers 29:35 to 14:25.
- The Pioneers have now been outscored 89-79 in their first four games.
- St. Mary's averaged 6.5 yards per carry (359 yards on 55 carries)
That's it for now. With the compressed schedule due to the Pioneers' game Thursday night, I'll be accelerating my posting. I'll take a look around the league Monday night, then post the next entry in my 1986 Super Season series on Tuesday and finally I'll have the Danvers preview on Wednesday.
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