Time to Begin Again - Kicking off 2016

by Tom Condardo

Thought I disappeared right? Not so. Just waiting for the right time to spring the first post of the 2016 season on you. And not to rush past the summer, but that time is now. The beginning of a new Pioneer football season is upon us.

Preseason practice starts next Friday, August 19 and from then on it'll be all football all the time until Thanksgiving.

To prepare you for the upcoming season, I wanted to bring you up to speed about what's been happening around the Pioneer program in particular and in the high school football scene in general. There are some significant changes that affect the Pioneers both in the league and in post season play and we'll get to those shortly. But first, let's do a quick review of what's been happening with the Pioneer this summer.

7 v 7's
In addition to conditioning workouts three days a week, the Pioneers have been active on the 7 v 7 circuit. They got off to a nice start in early June with an impressive performance in a 20 team passing tournament at Assumption College. In round robin play, the Pioneers defeated Holliston, Killingly (CT), and Bishop Guertin (NH) and lost to Worcester Academy, a postgraduate school. The Pioneers were one of six teams advancing to the playoffs and missed making it to the final four when they fell to Londonderry (NH). 

“They did pretty well,” head coach Neal Weidman said of the team’s effort following the tournament. “We’re just trying to get guys in the right position and figure out who can do what because we have a number of new guys trying to fill a lot of open positions.”

The Pioneers had another strong showing July 23 in the annual Under Armour 7v7 tournament at Bishop Fenwick. Playing in 90+ degree heat, the Pioneers battled with 39 other teams for the East Division title and a right to move on to the UA New England Championship.

The Pioneers finished with a 3-1 record in pool play earning them a trip to the playoffs. They beat Billerica and Malden by the same 8-6 score to start the tournament then lost to Watertown 20-12. They bounced back with a 19-6 victory over Gloucester to earn their playoff berth. 

An impressive 19-0 win over Pinegree propelled them into the Elite Eight where their title hopes were dashed in a 15-7 loss to Milton.

“I thought we competed well and made it pretty deep into the tournament which was good,” said Weidman. “I was happy with how well we performed on both sides of the ball.”

The Pioneers got contributions from a host of players starting with captains Louis Ellis, Kyle Hawes, and Alex Boustris. Nick Kinnon got most of the snaps at quarterback but Jack Razzaboni chipped in with some timely TD passes as well. Other standouts included Cooper Marengi, Jay Ndansi, Peter Look, Andy Depalma, Alex Gildea, and Nathan Drislane. 

            

The defense was a particular area of interest as the Pioneers will be breaking in an all new corps of pass defenders and the newcomers did well. Hawes led the way along with Marengo, Kinnon, Jared Lemieux, Ndansi, Zack Huynh, and Tyler Murphy. 

“It was encouraging to see some of the juniors step up and make some big plays against teams like Billerica and Gloucester,” said Lynnfield assistant coach Pat Lamusta. 

"Our scoring was pretty spread out,” Weidman said. “We had some guys who haven’t had a lot of varsity experience step up and do some things which is what we were looking for. We need to see who can help out and make some plays. It was good day.”

Schedule all set

So much for the past. On to the future.

The Pioneer schedule through the end of October is all set. After a week of practices, the Pioneers will ramp up for the season with three Big Boy scrimmages, all on the road. They begin by jumping up three divisions to take on Masco, the largest school in the new Division 2, on Saturday, August 27^th at 9 am in Topsfield. (Lynnfield is in the new Division 3A. More on that later). The Pioneers then travel to take on 2A Salem on August 30 at 4:30 pm, and move on to face 2A Melrose September 2 at 4:00 pm.

Since the late 1980's, the final scrimmage of the preseason on Labor Day weekend has been against Northeast Metro Tech in Wakefield. However, due to the divisional realignment (again more on that later), the Pioneers are now in the same division as Northeast. Since they could potentially meet in the post season, Weidman opted to find another opponent for the third scrimmage and settled on the Red Raiders, a perennial Middlesex League power. The three scrimmage opponents will easily be the largest schools the Pioneers face all year and will provide a good toughening up for the regular season.

Things don't get a whole lot easier when the Pioneers kick off the regular season. They start off with a visit to the newly refurbished War Memorial Stadium in Newburyport on Friday, September 9th at 7 pm. Let's hope they excavated and buried the ghosts that have haunted the Pioneers for decades up there when they dug up the old field. The Pioneers did finally end a 13 game losing streak in the old stadium that stretched back to 1986 with a convincing 32-0 win in 2014. 

The Clippers will sail in under a new head coach, Mike Levine, a New Jersey native who has been coaching in Texas for the past seven years. Levine takes over for Ed Gaudiano who retired after 28 years as Newburyport head coach. 

The Pioneers return home for a tough home opener against Danvers, the largest school in the new Division 2A, on Friday, September 16 at 7 pm. The Falcons made it to the D3 state semi-finals last year but lost their bid for a Super Bowl berth falling to Melrose 24-7.

Lynnfield gets into their CAL Baker schedule in Amesbury on Friday, September 23 then returns to Pioneer Stadium for home games against Ipswich on Friday, September 30^th and Manchester-Essex on Friday, October 7^th.  Georgetown has left the CAL and will be playing an independent schedule so the Pioneers have a bye the weekend of October 15-16. 

“We looked for someone to fill that date,” said Weidman, “but then I figured we are going to be a young team so being able to practice for a week without preparing specifically for another team would be helpful. It will be like a second week of preseason." 

The Pioneers wrap up their Baker League schedule on the road against Hamilton-Wenham on Saturday, October 22 in their only day game of the regular season. 

Depending on the results of those first six games, the Pioneers will either move on to the Division 3A North Playoffs or have their remaining schedule filled with three games against other non-playoff teams. Barring a trip to the Super Bowl, the Pioneers will wrap up the 2016 season at home on Thanksgiving Day, November 24^th at 10:30 am against North Reading.  

Divisional Realignment
In an effort to balance out the divisions, the MIAA has realigned from six divisions into eight. The football committee realized that the divisions had become "bottom heavy" with the lower divisions having many more teams than the top divisions. To even things out, they created eight divisions of 12 teams each designated as D1, 1A, 2, 2A, 3, 3A, 4, and 4A. Placements were determined using male enrollments in grades 9-12.

The Pioneers (320 up from 305 in 2013), have been placed in Division 3A, the sixth largest division in the North, a drop of two divisions from last year’s D4 assignment. They go from being the second smallest school in last year’s 16-team D4 to the second largest school in this season’s new D3A. Fellow CAL league members Hamilton-Wenham and Ipswich will join the Pioneers. Five of the 12 schools in the division actually have higher enrollments than Lynnfield, but for placement purposes, vocational schools were cut by two thirds. 

Should the Pioneers make the playoffs, they will be competing against Matignon (411 combined with St. Joseph Prep), Stoneham (304), Hamilton-Wenham (279), Winthrop (274), Ipswich (266), St. Mary’s (235 after a plus 1.3 multiplier as a private school), Shawsheen Tech (231 after an 0.3 multiplier), Whittier Vocational (218 after the multiplier), Greater Lawrence Tech (215 after the multiplier), Northeast Metro Tech (200 after the multiplier) and Boston Latin (765). By agreement, all Boston Public Schools were placed in lower divisions, which is the reason Boston Latin was placed in this smaller division. Eight of the 12 teams will qualify for the playoffs instead of eight out of 16, which was the case last season. 

Despite now being one of the larger schools in their division, Weidman still thinks the Pioneers are in for some tough battles should they make the playoffs.

“If you look at some of the teams that we’re with, the competition is going to be similar,” he said. “You have Stoneham, St. Mary’s, and Winthrop and some other tough matchups. Obviously any time you play in the playoffs you’re still going to have dogfights against teams."

North Reading (407, now the second largest school in the CAL behind only Masco) was placed in D2A, two divisions higher than the Pioneers. They appealed their placement but were denied by the MIAA along with all other 16 schools who appealed their placements. To stay the Pioneers' arch rivals aren't happy with their assignment would be an understatement. 

“The MIAA hasn’t done us any favors but we can’t control their actions,” said Hornet head coach Jeff Wall. “This isn’t the first time we have climbed the mountain. Our athletes are aware of the challenges that lie ahead and are preparing diligently. To their credit, they aren’t phased by the move but rather accept is as an opportunity to prove themselves.”

The Hornets find themselves in a division made up of mostly Northeast Conference and Middlesex League teams. Should the Hornets make the playoffs, they will be competing against Danvers (494 enrollment), Marblehead (485), Burlington (479), Wakefield (461), Melrose (456), Gloucester (436), Wayland (434), Bedford (429), Wilmington (419), Dracut (393), and Salem (391 – adjusted down from 489 because they are a Comprehensive School). 

As for the rest of the CAL, Masco (632) is in Division 2, Newburyport (370), Triton (346), Pentucket (333), and Amesbury (331) were placed in D3. Manchester Essex (365 when combined with Rockport) and Georgetown (188) - who has gone independent and will not be playing a CAL football schedule this season – were placed in D4.

The Pioneers' placement provides the Pioneers with an opportunity to amass more points during the regular season. Matchups against now higher division Newburyport and Amesbury will be worth 12 points instead of 10 as will their game against Danvers. The other three CAL Baker games will be worth 10 points each.

One other interesting twist. Since the there is no division 3A in Massachusetts West, the Central, North and South will have a rotating bye into the Super Bowl should they win their division. By luck of the draw, the North - the Pioneers' division - has the bye this year.

Playoff system here to stay

When the current playoff system was instituted in 2013, it was supposed to be for a two year trial. However, the plan has been in operation for three years and the many schools who were not happy about the system, had been clamoring for another vote. The vote took place in April and the system was approved 161-105, a larger margin than the original approval in 2012. That means the current format is here to stay for the foreseeable future with tweaks made to adjust as the years go on.

One of those adjustments was the elimination of the automatic qualifier for the second place finisher in the league. This eliminates a situation where teams with a lesser record were getting into the playoffs where teams with better records but in tougher leagues were being shut out.

Spicing up Thanksgiving

One of the biggest complaints of the opponents of the playoff system was that it devalued the Thanksgiving Day games. The CAL has moved to address that by voting to include Thanksgiving Day games to determine league champions. That eliminates the need for holiday rivals to play twice - once in the regular season and then again on Thanksgiving. 

The Pioneers were not affected by this since North Reading is in the CAL Kinney, so the Tday game was never going to be a league game anyway. The only teams affected now are Pentucket-Triton, and Hamilton-Wenham-Ipswich. They will no longer play before the playoffs so the Kinney and Baker championships could hinge on those matches on the holiday.

The change also means there will not be an automatic qualifier from either CAL league. Playoff qualification will be determined strictly by the division ratings.

General change
Speaking of changes in the CAL, Hamilton Wenham will have a new old face at the helm this year. Andrew Morency, a member of the Beverly Hall of Fame, has returned home to take over as head coach of the Panthers. Morency led the Generals as they became the primary league rival of the Pioneers over the past decade. Morency spent 10 seasons with H-W compiling a 58-47 record with two CAL titles, four playoff appearances and a Super Bowl trip.

The Generals will be in good hands however as the new head man will be Jim Pugh, the former long time head coach at Masco. Pugh led the Chieftains for 26 years, won 178 games, seven CAL titles, and two Super Bowl appearances. He retired following the 2014 season but after a year as offensive coordinator at Malden Catholic, couldn't resist the lure of returning to the CAL. It should be an interesting change for Pugh who will be sharing the sidelines with a little more than half of the 60+ players he regularly suited up at Masco.

That's it for now. Check back soon and don't forget to follow all the Pioneer action with my coverage in the Lynnfield Villager.