Super Season

My partner photographer Jack Schnelle described it perfectly right after the game: Sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination.

Yes the team and coaches are disappointed tonight with the 21-7 loss and they will be for a while and that is understandable. They are competitors and they lost a football game they desperately wanted to win. After putting everything they had into that type of effort and coming up short, there is little to console them.

At least not yet.

But understand there were no losers tonight. The Pioneers lost to a better team in Bishop Feehan and sometimes that happens. There is much to be proud of in being the second best team in the division as 24 other schools could readily attest.

With time will come perspective, even for head coach Neal Weidman and his squad.

That perspective will reveal that the 2012 Pioneers played one of the most successful seasons in the history of the program.

The won a league championship, as eight other Pioneer teams have done.

They made it to the post season as only two other Lynnfield teams did.

They went to a Super Bowl as only the 1986 team did.

And they won a post season game, something none of the others managed to do.

Would a Super Bowl championship have been the cherry on top? Of course. But simply being unable to reach that final goal does nothing to diminish the outstanding season this group of young men put together.

Yes the 2012 Pioneers may not have reached their final destination. But they certainly enjoyed a spectacular journey. And I'm sure I speak for all followers of Lynnfield football in thanking them for taking us along.

Congratulations!