Well the season has come to a close and the CAL/NEC 4 has officially crowned Hamilton Wenham as its champ and standard bearer heading into the Division 3A playoffs Tuesday night against Newburyport. Today we'll take a look at the Thanksgiving Day rivalry games and then we'll take a first glimpse at what the 2012 season might have in store.
First, a look at the final standings.
No real surprises on the holiday. The Lynnfield-North Reading game figured to be the only contest and that's they way it turned out for three quarters at least. The other two games didn't look to be too competitive and that also turned out to be the case.
Hamilton-Wenham put an exclamation point on a undefeated regular season with a convincing 33-8 beatdown of rival Ipswich as they tune up for a rematch with Newburyport.
The General defense, which has been solid all year, led the way in this one returning two interceptions for scores in the second period to help build a 26-0 halftime lead. Ipswich finally got on the board in the third with a pick six of their own to cut the lead to 26-8. But H-W quarterback Trevor Lyons tossed his second TD pass of the game to account for the final 33-8 score.
Meanwhile, up in Georgetown, Manchester Essex won their second game in a row with an impressive 28-7 win over the Royals.
Georgetown actually jumped out in front with a 1 yard run by Tyler Wade, but the Hornets stung back.
Quarterback Corey Burnham connected with Joe Burgess to cut the lead to 7-6 at the half then ran for touchdowns in the third and early in the fourth to take a 20-7 lead. Chris Dumont capped the scoring with a one yard run.
So North Reading sewed up second place with a 4-1 mark. Lynnfield, M/E and Ipswich all tied with 2-3 league records but M/E beat Lynnfield to take third place and the Pioneers beat Ipswich to take fourth. Ipswich ended up in fifth and struggling Georgetown, winless in league play, brought up the rear.
Overall no real surprises in the final standings. H-W figured to be the toughest team in the league with Lynnfield and North Reading battling for second place. M/E's win over the Pioneers lifted them higher than expected. Ipswich lost a lot of seniors, started slow and then rebounded in the league season.The young Georgetown team with a new coach looked to struggle in rebuilding mode.
So what does next year look like?
The most striking difference will be at quarterback.
This year, five out of the six teams started the season with a new signal caller. Lyons for the Generals was the starting tailback last year but was playing QB for the first time this season. Karavetsos, Burnham at M/E, freshman Nick Andreas in Ipswich and Jackson Kellog in North Reading were all first year QB's. Ironically, the only team with a returning quarterback was Georgetown with Tyler Wade.
The situation will be completely reversed next year with Karavetsos, Burnham, Andreas, Kellogg and Lyons all returning. The Royals will be the only team breaking in a new signal caller.
So let's take a quick sneak preview of the 2012 season in order of this year's finish.
Hamilton-Wenham: The dynamic and dangerous Lyons will return for the defending champs, but he will not have the powerhouse supporting cast around him. The Generals used about 14 players all year, and they will be graduating nine of them including four of their five gargantuan linemen. They will still be formidable just by reason of having Lyons and having two years of confidence building success. The defense will revolve around Lyons, Steve Turpin, Christian Ecker and Pete Duval, but those are all linebackers or DB's. Coach Andrew Morency will have to come up with a line to build around returnee Matt Vogus. The Generals will still be a factor, but will probably not be as dominating as they were the past two years.
North Reading: The team that will likely take the top spot as most dominating in the league is the Hornets. They will be scary good. Their entire backfield, including Division 3A leading scorer Carl Lipani will be back and the Hornets will have another year of working with the single wing. They really started to get into a rhythm as the year wore on and another season will only make them more dangerous.
"Yeah and we have another kid on the sidelines (Ryan Sanborn) who's a sophomore who is one of the fastest kids on the team," North Reading coach Jeff Wall told me. "He's a big strong kid. He hurt his knee (against H-W) and he's coming back also. We have our whole backfield coming back. We just have to replace a few guys on the offensive line."
When I told him I would be installing the Hornets as preseason favorites for 2012, Wall was aghast.
"No, pick us last," he said in mock horror. "Don't put us first. It gives us something to fight for."
Nope. The Hornets are for real and will be the team to beat next year.
Manchester-Essex: The Hornets graduate 10 seniors but they return a good looking quarterback in Burnham, two running backs in Chris Dumont and Jake Fitzgerald and a receiver in John Beardsley. Most of a good sized line returns as well, so look for M/E to be improved.
Lynnfield: The Pioneers return skill position players Karavetsos, running back Kyle McGah, receiver Alex Pascucci but the home team's strength should be on defense where the Pioneers return most of their defense including standout linemen Andrew Kibarian and D. J. DeGeorge and quietly effective Mike Soden. Linebackers Tyler Palumbo, McGah, A. J. Gallo and Alex Roper all return as well. The Pioneers will be in the hunt.
Ipswich: The Tigers played this year with a freshman quarterback which tells you what they think of him. They already started to modify their Delaware Wing T to accommodate their new weapon so expect the Tigers to be more of a throwing team next year. Bullish running back Derek Chamberlain returns as does tight end Chris McCormack so look for Ipswich to be able to score on offense. Hard hitting John Elnagger returns to lead the defense. The Tigers too look to be improved.
Georgetown: The Royals were the youngest team in the league with only two seniors on their roster. They were also starting over with a new head coach in Paul Sobolewski. The good news for them is that they return virtually everyone so the lumps the young team took this year should start to pay off. The bad news is that they lose Wade, the lynchpin of their offense. You would think the Royals should improve but losing Wade and with the rest of the league improving, they could face another tough season.
So in summary what can we look forward to next year?
H-W should take a step back. North Reading will take two steps forwards. Lynnfield, Ipswich, M/E should all take a step forward and Georgetown will likely take a step back, mostly because of the improvement in the rest of the league. Bottom line is that it promises to be a very tight race and the eventual champ may not be able to run the table as the Generals have the past few years.
That's it for now. Check back Wednesday for my next post on the 1986 Super Pioneers.
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