Bishop Fenwick Leftovers

Well after two lopsided losses to the Pioneers by the combined score of 77-29, Bishop Fenwick got their revenge with a solid 14-7 win Friday night, their first ever against Lynnfield in the third meeting between the schools. You can get all the game details and color action photos in my Villager report on Wednesday, but a few thoughts on the game.

It's always interesting to see how a team responds after an inspiring comeback like the one the Pioneers staged against Amesbury. It can go one of two ways. Either a team realizes it dodged a bullet, swipes the flop sweat from their brow and redoubles their efforts to avoid getting into that deep of a hole again. Or it can go the other way - the team begins to think they are invulnerable and that however far behind they get, they can flip the switch and turn things around and just make another comeback.

We may have seen more of the latter than the former against Fenwick Friday night.

"Maybe it was coming off a high from last week, "said head coach Neal Weidman in trying to explain the flat performance of his Pioneers, especially in the first half. "I don't know what it was. It just wasn't good."

Usually a coach can tell how a team will perform from the way they practice in the week heading into the game. I asked Weidman how practices were prior to the Fenwick game.

"Practices this week weren't great," he said.

So last week I talked about the number of comebacks in the Weidman Era. In view of the performance Friday night, I thought I'd take a look at the games following some of those comebacks, to see if there was a pattern. It turned out to be a mixed bag.

Last year following the Pentucket comeback in which the Pioneers rallied from 14-0 to win 21-14, they came back the following week with a flat performance against Ipswich. They escaped with a 14-6 win against a Tiger team that ended the season 4-7.

After the Amesbury comeback win last year, the Pioneers had no letdown at all and smashed Fenwick 35-8.

In 2010 following the 30-13 comeback win in Amesbury, the Pioneers played their poorest game of the year in the infamous Fox Friday 24-7 loss in Newburyport.

Conversely, in 2009, after the Panzero-Lamusta Scoop and Score win over Amesbury, the Pioneers roared out of the gate to hammer Newburyport 27-13 in a game they blew open early with a 27-0 lead.

But that win over Amesbury, a team that finished the year 4-6, was itself a letdown game following the last second 21-19 Ullian Field Goal win over Triton the previous week.

So in the final analysis, you just never know. Glad I could help.

Lack of Rhythm Blues
Weidman noted that the Pioneers seemed out of synch most of the game and was never really able to put anything together on a sustained basis against the Crusaders.

"They did a good job taking our run away," the coach explained. "We got it going a little bit in the second half but we really had no rhythm. We had very few plays in the first half (11). We got into a little bit of a rhythm there in the second half but we made a couple of crucial mistakes. The two bad snaps didn't help at all. But we really left too many plays out there. A lot of big plays that we had open and we didn't convert on any of them."

To that point, the most crucial plays occur on third and fourth downs. Fenwick was 5 for 9 in those situations (3 for 6 on third down, 2 for 3 on fourth down) while the Pioneers were 2 for 11 (2 for 7 on third down and 0 for 4 on fourth down).

Weidman agreed on that point but not necessarily on the calls on the Pioneers' next to last possession where captain Alex Pascucci caught a pass from captain Mike Karavetsos but was stopped at the goal line and then Kyle McGah was stopped on fourth down.

"I thought we got in on the catch at the goal line and then I thought we got in on the run too," the coach said.

Running Time
Obviously a big part of the Fenwick game plan was to control the clock and keep the ball away from the Pioneers' wide open offense. That's also a smart thing to do with a running back like Rufus Rushins who can simply take over a game. The plan worked to perfection as the Crusaders enjoyed a two to one advantage in time of possession and until Lynnfield's final two possessions, held a 56-33 edge in plays.

The game started at 7:00 pm and the scoreless first period ended at 7:20 pm. With an 11 minute period, that's not much time for stops and it makes sense since BF ran the ball 13 out of 14 plays and the one pass they threw was complete so the clock didn't stop there either.  The Pioneers contributed to the non stop play with five running plays and two complete passes in the quarter. The first half ended at 7:49 which means there was only 27 minutes of non game time in the first two quarters.

The officials were also not in any big hurry to stop the clock or to put the ball quickly into play. Teams have 25 seconds to get off a play once the referee signals the ball is "in play." On many occasions, it took upwards of 10 seconds to get the ball set and start the play clock, giving the Crusaders almost 35 seconds to eat up on many plays.

The officials were in no mood to stop the clock for any other reasons as well even when Weidman requested a measurement on some of the close first down decisions.

The game ended at 9:00 pm, which is a pretty quick pace considering that ultimately, the Pioneers through the ball 21 times with 13 incompletions, all of which stop the clock. The other factor was the lack of penalties in a game that saw Lynnfield flagged only once and Fenwick called for three infractions.

Rare Bye
This will be only the fifth bye week for the Pioneers since the start of the season was moved up to early September in the mid 1990's and the first for Lynnfield since 2003. The Pioneers are 2-3 coming out of the bye week in those contests. Here is a rundown of those post-bye games.

November 2003 - Lost to Pentucket 28-19
November 2002 - Beat Triton 13-6
November 1997 - Beat North Reading 23-7
October 1996 - Lost to North Andover 54-6
October 1995 - Lost to North Andover 35-6

Quick Hitters
- The 254 yards allowed against Bishop Fenwick was the most the Pioneers have allowed since the 339 allowed against North Reading last season.
- The 179 total yards gained by the Pioneers was the fewest since last year's Manchester-Essex game when they managed only 138 yards
- Mike Soden had another solid two way game. His 13 yard first down catch in the first quarter was particularly stellar. He reached up to make the grab over the middle and took quite a pop but held on. He had two catches for 27 yards in the game.
- Speaking of holding on, junior Matt Kramich continues to show some grit in the return game, unafraid to make catches in traffic and head into the teeth of the cover team.
- Not only did Rushins and quarterback Nick Bona hurt the Pioneers with their running ability on offense, they were also heavily involved on the defensive side of the ball, making several key stops.
- This was the Pioneers' fourth straight road game going back to Thanksgiving Day last year. When they finally play at home on October 6, it will be nearly 11 months since they have played a game on Pioneer Field at the Middle School.

Lynnfield Pioneer Football Club Fundraiser Monday night
One last reminder for the Lynnfield Pioneer Football Club's fundraiser at the 99 Restaurant Monday night from 5 pm to 9 pm. Make sure you get to a football player or parent for the voucher that will allow a portion of your bill to be donated to the LPFC.

9th Annual O'D's Run/Walk This Sunday
Also, I wanted to remind all you runners and walkers about O'D's 9th annual 5K Run/Walk on this coming Sunday, September 30 at 10 at the high school. The event is held in memory of Johnny O'Donnell, a former Pioneer football player who also played baseball and wrestled for LHS. Proceeds from the event go to raise funds for scholarships. The event serves as a tribute to and celebration of Johnny's short life with us. For further information, contact Karen Mahon at 508-528-1286 or register at the web site at www.odsrunwalk.weebly.com. I will be running and hope to see you there!

That's it for now. Check back Monday night for another look around the CAL/NEC 4.