Danvers Leftovers

by Tom Condardo

Progress.

That's all you look for when bringing a young team along early in the season. Pioneer head coach Neal Weidman has made it clear that getting his team up to speed will be a process and that means getting better every week.

If you watched Danvers dominate the line of scrimmage and control most of the action Friday night, you might not think the Pioneers made much progress in their second game of the year.

Think again.

"I think we competed much better tonight than we did last week (against Newburyport)," Weidman told me after the game. "I wish we would have competed last week like we did tonight. It would have been a little different."

And keep in mind that the Pioneers were stepping up in class when it comes to opponents. No disrespect to Newburyport, but Danvers is a scary good team that promises to do some damage in the Division 2A playoffs later in the season.

The Falcons are loaded with weapons starting with superback Matt Andreas who put on quite a display Friday night rushing for 162 yards and two TD's. Slippery quarterback Justin Mullaney (11 carries for 55 yards) ran the Falcon offense to perfection and lanky speedster Tahg Coakley (94 yards rushing, 1 catch for a TD receiving) looks like a touchdown waiting to happen every time he touches the ball.

The Danvers offensive line keyed a rushing attack that rolled for 347 yards and controlled the clock for 33 of of 44 minutes of the game. The Falcons were also 6/12 on third and fourth down, a 50% conversion rate.

"They definitely got some gashes at times," admitted Weidman. "We're still struggling a little bit getting stops and getting off the field and at the same time keeping the ball for longer periods of time."

Now all that said, in the end, this was a two touchdown defeat. The pair of two point conversions made it look worse than it was, but despite total domination by the Falcons, the Pioneers hung tough, trailing by only one TD until the middle of the fourth quarter.

Even at that point when Danvers made it 30-14, Nick Kinnon was one broken tackle away from making it a one score game again with what would have been a 100 kick return following the Falcon TD.

Weidman also pointed out that the Pioneers dramatically cut down on the mistakes they committed in the Newburyport game. They committed nine penalties for 87 yards last week but against Danvers, they were flagged only twice for 15 yards. There also appeared to be far fewer missed assignments.

A loss is still a loss, but the Pioneers have clearly come a long way and are showing steady improvement. They will need to continue to move in a positive direction as they begin CAL Baker League play this week in Amesbury.

Struggling Firsts
The Pioneers slow start has resulted in some things that haven't happened in a while such as:

• First 0-2 start since 2007 when they lost to Georgetown 28-20 in the opener and then lost a heartbreaker in overtime to Manchester Essex 21-14 in a game they led 14-0 in the second half.
• First time they've scored less than 20 points in two straight games in a single season since 2011 (losses to M/E 7-6 and North Reading 37-18).
• First time allowing 30 points or more in two straight games in the same season since 2011 (40-16 to St. Mary's, 42-35 to Danvers)

Impressive Start
Nick Kinnon is off to an impressive start this season. The junior has scored all four Pioneer touchdowns - 2 receiving and 2 rushing - accounting for 24 of the team's 26 points. He's caught 10 passes for 157 yards and rushed 3 times for 32 yards. In addition, he's been a weapon on kick returns returning seven kicks for 171 yards- a 24.4 average.

It's Good!
Freshman kicker Liam Fabbri got off the schneid Friday night booting two PATs with authority to get in the scoring column. Not to put any pressure on the youngster, but he only has 111 to go to catch all time Pioneer PAT leader Dan Bronshvayg who nailed 113 of them from 2013-2015.

Solo Shot
Pioneer quarterback Matt Mortellite and Patriot quarterback Jimmy Garopollo now have something in common. Last week against the Cardinals, Garopollo had a pass batted up in the air and he caught and moved forward for a couple of yards. Mortellite pulled off the same trick against Danvers when his third down pass was blocked. He caught it and surged forward for a four yard gain and a first down. That's taking matters into your own hands.

Eliminated
Captain Louis Ellis had a solid game on defense for the Pioneers, coming up with a sack and a fumble recovery against the Falcons. The big receiver was quiet on offense, however, catching only one first quarter pass for six yards. There was a very specific reason Ellis never got untracked.

"They took Louis out of the game," Weidman said of the Danvers defense. "Either (Andreas) or (Coakley) were on him the whole time. They are normally safeties not cornerbacks but they decided to take him out. That did give us some other good matchups and opened a few other things up."

Banged Up
The Pioneers did suffer a couple of significant injuries. Running back/linebacker Anthony Murphy was shaken up in the third but returned to the game. Tight end/linebacker Cooper Marengi appeared to suffer a twisted ankle on one of the final plays and was hobbling after the game. His availability for next week isn't yet known.

That's it for now. Check back Tuesday night for my Around the League post.