Amesbury Leftovers

Prior to the start of the second half of the game Friday night with the Pioneers trailing 20-12, Lynnfield line coach Gino Fodera sidled up to me on the sideline.

"Are you ready for one of the greatest comebacks in Lynnfield history," he promised.

Who knew? Other than Gino of course.

Stellar football coach and prophet.

As you will read in my Villager article on Wednesday, the comeback from 21-0 to a tremendous 31-27 win is definitely the biggest comeback for Lynnfield football since I've been covering the Pioneers, which goes back 24 years to 1989. I don't have the game stories before that other than to say prior to 1989, there were only seven other games in which the Pioneers allowed 21 or more points and won. It's conceivable that one of those involved a comeback from 21 points down, but my guess is that as much time I've spent roaming through the archives, I would have stumbled on such an occurrence by now.

So suffice to say, it is the greatest comeback in the last quarter century, and unofficially the largest comeback in LHS history.

In any case, it was one of the most exciting high school football games you are likely to see in a long time.

Comeback Kids
Speaking of comebacks, Pioneer coach Neal Weidman's squads seems to have elevated that specialty to an art form. With Friday's comeback, and the ones against Amesbury for the past few years I started to recall quite a few recent Pioneer comeback victories.

I decided to dive back into the records to see how many times the Pioneers have staged comeback wins in the Weidman Era.

This is Weidman's fifth year as head coach and in that time his teams have posted 28 wins. Of those, ten or 36%, have come after the Pioneers trailed at some point in the game and so qualify as "comebacks".

Of the ten, only one came in the first half- i.e. the other team scored first and the Pioneers were back in the lead by the beginning of the second quarter. That was the Danvers game in 2010 when the Falcons scored first but ultimately fell to the Pioneers 40-18.

Two came in the second quarter. The Ipswich game in 2008 when the Pioneers trailed 7-0 but scored twice in the second quarter to go in at halftime and ultimately win 13-7 and the 2010 North Reading game when the Hornets ate up almost the entire first quarter and scored to lead 6-0. The Pioneers scored quickly in the second quarter once they got the ball and never looked back in a 21-6 win.

Two have come in the third quarter and both of those were last year. The Amesbury game when D. J. DeGeorge and A. J. Gallo combined for the Pop and Scoop II TD for the 14-13 win and the other was the Ipswich game when the Pioneers trailed 6-0 at the half but scored twice in the third quarter for the 13-6 win.

But half of the comebacks qualify as true nailbiters, coming in the fourth quarter.

The first was in 2009 when Steve Ullian's field goal with nine seconds left lifted the Pioneers to a 21-19 win over Triton. The second came later in the year on the Evan Panzero/Tim Lamusta Pop and Scoop I TD that came midway in the fourth for a 14-10 win.

The third was 2010 in Amesbury when the Pioneers trailed at the half, tied the game at 13-13 in the third and then went on to win it in the fourth on a Ullian field goal and two TD runs by junior Mike Thomas.

The fourth was last year against Pentucket when the Pioneers fell behind 14-0 at the half, tied it in the third and won it in the fourth on a 50 yard bomb from Mike Karavetsos to Steve Yobaccio.

The fifth was Friday night. I trust there is no need to recap that one.

So the message is that the next time the Pioneers fall behind, don't fret. There is a one in three chance that they will come back and win.

Long Odds
While trawling through the archives for the largest comeback, I stumbled upon another interesting stat. The Pioneers have now played 538 games in the school's history. In 117 of those, they have allowed an  opponent to score 27 or more points. Of those 117 games, they had won a grand total of....two. In 1959 they beat Ashland 38-28 and in 1992 they defeated Pentucket 35-27. Every other time they allowed an opponent 27 or more points they lost.

After Friday night's 31-27 win, their record in those games is now 3-115.

Interesting Second Guess
In all the excitement Friday night, there was a decision made by Amesbury head coach Thom Connors that fell off the radar a bit. When the Indians scored midway in the third quarter, Connors, who I think is one of the best and classiest coaches in the league, opted to try a pass for the two point conversion instead of taking an almost automatic PAT from his deadeye kicker Mac Short. Short had hit his first three tries easily.

When the pass failed, the Indians led 27-12 and considering the way the game played out, actually opened the door for the Pioneer win. If Amesbury had gone for the one point, they would have led 28-12 and then when the Pioneers went on to score three times, Lynnfield would have been up 31-28.

That would have meant that instead of throwing three incomplete passes from the Pioneer ten yard line to end the game, Amesbury would have been able to try a 27 yard field goal to tie the game. The way Short was booming them, that would have been a reasonable shot to send the game into overtime.

I spoke to both Weidman and Connors after the game and to be honest didn't think to ask about the decision, but in replaying the point in time when it was made, I think I know what the Amesbury coach was thinking.

By kicking the extra point, Amesbury would have been up 28-12 and it would still have been a two score game. Granted, the Pioneers would have had to score twice and make both two point conversions to tie. If he had made the two point conversion, the Indians would have been up 29-12 and thus made it a three score game with a quarter and a half to play. That's a tall order for a high school team.

And I'm sure Connors never figured that in ten minutes of game time 1) his special teams would give up an 85 yard kickoff return to captain Alex Pascucci to set up one TD. 2) his defense would give up an 83 yard drive to pin his offense deep and force him to punt from the end zone and give the Pioneers the ball on the Indian 39 to set up a second score and 3) his offense would fumble on its own 25 yard line to set up the winning score and 4) junior Kyle McGah would explode for 100 yards and 3 TD's.

Bottom line? Hindsight his 20/20.

Mutual Admiration Society
Speaking of Weidman and Connors, it's clear that the two coaches genuinely like and respect each other and their programs.

"I tell you it's every year with them," Weidman told me after the game. "Every single year. I have a ton of respect for them. Their coaches are great guys. They work really hard. Their kids are good kids. They play hard and we literally have a battle every single year."

"We knew we were going to have to continue to score and score because I knew this is what were going to be in to," Connors told me.

Weidman was impressed with the Indians final drive which just fell short.

"They went right down the field too," Weidman said. "They showed a lot of guts and a lot of character to do that. They could have folded at the end as well and they didn't."

Connors, though, is the type of class act that you would want to coach your kid. He simply has the right attitude for coaching high school football. Instead of ranting and raving or being upset following the tough loss, he put it all in perspective.

"Any time you lose it's tough," he told me. "One of the things I want my kids to realize is that you just played a great football game and don't ever forget it. A bunch of you scored and made big plays and tackles and don't ever forget that. You lost by four points and you played your hearts out. It was a great game. I'm proud of our guys."

Birthday Boy
When Matt Talbot zigzagged through the Pioneer defense for a 37 yard TD run in the first minute of the game, the PA announcer at Landry Stadium wished the senior captain a happy 19th birthday. Talbot certainly celebrated by running for 124 yards and a touchdown and throwing for 168 yards and a touchdown.

"He's very good," said Weidman. "We knew it coming in. He ran over us last year. He's good and he's smart and he's tough. "

"I'm sure he'd trade his birthday in for a win," chuckled Connors.

Slippery Devil
The game featured seven turnovers, but I couldn't get either coach to really credit that to the defenses.

"Of course that's going to have something to do with it because both teams are physical and there's a lot of hard hitting going on," replied Weidman who saw his team fumble twice and throw an interception in a five minute span in the first half. "But a lot of it has to do with the fact that we're just not protecting it. We're just not. We did ball security drills this week which we hadn't done up to last week and we'll have to do some more."

"I think it was we just didn't have good ball control," said Connors whose team fumbled three times and threw one pick. "You've got to take care of the ball. Going into the half it's ball security. We talk about it all the time. We tell the kids to wrap up and make sure you have ball security.

Unique Playlist
Finally, normally before a game the PA system will be blasting out tunes, normally current pop tunes or rap or NFL films music. Upon entering Landry Stadium, it was interesting to hear the sound of Wagner and the Flight of the Valkyries blasting through the stadium as the teams warmed up.

You've all heard it, and the first thing I thought of was this helicopter scene from the movie Apocalypse Now. I thought it was a bit incongruous for a high school football game, but the way the contest unfolded, I think was actually the perfect soundtrack.

That's it for now. Check back tomorrow night and I'll take a look at how the other CAL/NEC 4 teams made out over the weekend.