Georgetown Game Preview: On The Road Again...Finally

by Tom Condardo

There's no place like home, and the Pioneers have enjoyed their extended staycation at Pioneer Field. They've now played five straight, and six of their last seven regular season games at home. And they've taken advantage, winning all six. The last Lynnfield regular season road game was in Manchester- Essex last November.

Of course the Pioneers did travel to Lowell and Foxboro for two postseason games last year but no one is complaining about that.

The home cooking ends this weekend as the Pioneers will finally hit the road. Instead of boarding the bus for the short trip from the High School to the Middle School, the 4-0 first place Pioneers will head north to Georgetown.

Royals Hurting

They'll be taking on an undermanned Royals team that was thin to begin with and has been hobbled further by injuries. For the second straight year, Georgetown has lost their starting quarterback, a blow they've been unable to overcome so far.

Last year the dynamic Niko Edwards led the Royals to a 41-14 opening week win over West Bridgewater. They lost their next two but still were putting up points losing 32-12 to Revere and 52-48 to Whittier. Once Edwards went down, Georgetown managed only 78 points in their next eight games and were shut out twice. One of those was a 35-0 loss to the Pioneers.

The Royals were hopeful coming into this year with a solid group of returnees led by 6'6" 220 lb all league tight end/defensive end Pat Bjork. The plan was for him to be the main target for Colby Ingraham, converted from running back to quarterback.

That plan went down the drain when Ingraham suffered a knee injury early in the Manchester-Essex game and was lost for the season.

"He was the fastest kid on the field every time he was out there," Pioneer head coach Neal Weidman said of Ingraham. "It's unfortunate. You hate to see that happen to any kid. He was their best player."

Royal coach Paul Sobolewski has attempted to pick up the pieces by putting Bjork in to run Georgetown's spread offense. The Royals struggled last week, falling to Ipswich, but another week of practice can only help Bjork and the offense.

Rough Stretch
The run of bad luck has hit Georgetown hard. They are 0-4 this year and have now lost 14 in a row and 23 of their last 24.

That hasn't always been the case for Georgetown, a perennial Commonwealth Conference contender before entering the Cape Ann League. The Royals joined the CAL in football in 2008 and finished 8-2 overall, 5-1 in the league and missed out on the title by a tiebreaker. Unfortunately it's been downhill for them since then. In the following four and a half seasons, the Royals are 5-41.

With the smallest enrollment in the league (200 boys vs 305 for Lynnfield, the next smallest school), the Royals always face a numbers crunch and this year is no different.

Despite their struggles, Georgetown has some quality athletes. They run a spread offense similar to M/E with a lot of two back sets. Flanking Bjork in the backfield will be two solid running backs in Matt Prescot and Cooper Martens. Ben Prescott is solid on the defensive side of the ball.

"They run a lot of gap stuff, pulls and traps," Weidman said.

Royal Linemen Jacob Myers (66),  Jordan Flynn (62)
and Jack Denley (58)  

Big Boy Football
It may be worth watching the battle in the trenches. The Royals returned most of their offensive line and actually matchup size-wise with the Pioneers. Brandon Willis is 6'4" 280, Jacob Myers is 5'10 220, and Jordan Flynn is 6'3" 230. The line averages 6'1" 245 which is pretty close to the Pioneers' 6'2" 245.

Don't expect the Pioneers to take them for granted.

"It's another league game and we want to keep improving," said Weidman. "We want to keep getting better. We're still playing some kids that are first year varsity players and they're still first year varsity players."

Game time in Georgetown is 2 pm.

That's it for now. Check back Saturday after the game.