Will the rain please disappear?
OK, another sparkling week for my now hated colleague Dave Dyer, who puts up a 13-1 to my 11-3.
I’ve five games back, but I keep telling myself it’s early.
Here are my 10 observations from Week #4.
1. DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING….
That ringing you here is the Cape Ann League Large School alarm clock that went off just before last weekend.
Pentucket wakes up and knocks off Hamilton. Sorry, we can’t count the blowout of Greater Lowell.
Masco avoids the 0-4 collar with an upset??? of Lincoln-Sudbury.
North Andover gets its first win with Zac Iovanella’s arrival on the scene.
Maybe that league race could get interesting after all. Wilmington is 3-0 … albeit against the most mediocre of opposition.
2. Which leads us to point No. 2. How healthy did Lawrence get over the bye week? Here’s a team that, without eight starters, walloped Newburyport, a team that nearly beat NA.
Two keys for the Lancers: Can Alex Andrews get eligible and can he work within the team framework?
Can Harvey Blanco, who’s got a really nasty calf injury, get healthy?
3. Had to love Pinkerton coach Brian O’Reilly breaking out the kick return chicanery, with the Londonderry-style, back-to-the-kick-team handoffs. It was vintage Lancers, Tom Sawyer would be proud. What’s that, Brian? You didn’t get it from Londonderry? Sure, and I don’t stop at J.Michael’s for those stupendous buffalo wings every time I’m on Route 28 headed to your place.
Of course, you stole, er lifted, it from Sawyer’s old Lancer playbook.
“Actually, we got it from the University of Texas when they had Ham, Jam and Lam Jones in the backfield. I ran it long before Tom, back in 1981 or 1982. We just didn’t run it well, so I put it on the shelf,” said O’Reilly, who still mystifies me that a guy five years younger than me was coaching in 81, when I was trying to find a way to survive Tom Salvo’s killer chem course at Central Catholic.
(That’s a joke, folks. You see, O’Reilly might be older than me by a half-dozen or eight years, but the guy looks like he’s 39).
Back to the kick return.
Did Sawyer procure it from Pinkerton, as O’Reilly hinted? Wow, that’s sheer blasphemy on the Lancer side of Route 102.
Anyway, the countdown to THE regular season game of the NH Division 1 schedule is under way. These schools are serious rivals, and this is one of the few years the game is a tossup. Expect something special at Lancer Park Saturday night. Come back to the blog later this week for an in-depth preview.
4. How did St. John’s Prep, the same St. John’s Prep that hung on for its life against Central Catholic, beat Everett?
This is not one of the great Prep teams, good not great. To beat Everett is a major head-scratcher.
It also diminishes the claim by Dracut, who fell to Everett by three TDs, as a beast in the MVC.
Even at 2-1, I’m sticking to my prediction of the Raiders to win the league.
5. Remember the name Nick LaSpada. My apologies to the Billerica frosh if the spelling is awry. The kid is the real deal. He was the difference in the mud Friday night against gritty Methuen.
6. Speaking of sticking with predictions, I’ll stay with Salem making the Division 1 playoffs in NH. If there is such a thing, that was an impressive loss at Pinkerton Saturday.
7. My man Ben Proulx was off to a monster game Saturday for the Astros, six tackles with two for a loss in the first half, before going down with an ankle injury. “We’re going to need him against Londonderry,” said O’Reilly, who with coordinator Bryon Murphy has done a real nice job of moving the versatile junior up and down the line, inside and out, so teams struggle to find him.
8. Best race around as it shapes up is clearly the CAL small, which features defending champ Amesbury, Georgetown and North Reading … plus my sleeper, Joe Clancy and Newburyport … and even Ham-Wenham in the running. Final tuneups for all this weekend before the slate kicks in for real.
9. Toughest of tough losses from the gritty Sanborn indians, who went all the way to West Swanzey, only to come up on the short end of a 2-0 loss to the Grizzlies. Remember, you heard it here first, the fledgling indians win a game this year.
10. Reality check for Timberlane, absorbing a 31-0 thumping at the hands of unbeaten BG. Great story on this, though. I’m at the Plaistow Market Basket Saturday morning and hear two old-timers talking about the tough breaks the Owls got, and how they could have been right in it, while they were sorting through the bell peppers. Good to see people talking high school sports with passion.
OK, the updated Longo Top 10:
1. Pinkerton (3-1) … To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.
2. Londonderry (4-0) … Saturday night, it’s the Lancers turn to walk that aisle.
3. Pelham (3-0) … Hope Bruce and the boys found a way to keep busy on the bye.
4. Central Catholic (2-1) … Oh boy, somebody walk up the monster in Zack Latrell this week. Look out.
5. North Reading (3-0) … Not since Dave Bettencourt rolled out the Lamontagne-Privitera combination for the 1985 Central Catholic baseball team has there been a more impactful Darren-Dino athletic duo than Hornets Hartwell and Rizzo in our region.
6. Georgetown (3-0) … Amesbury lurks in two weeks, but don’t overlook Marblehead boys.
7. Timberlane (2-2) … Tough loss so the Owls tumble.
8. Phillips Andover (2-0) … Longo has to learn more about this crew.
9. Lawrence (2-1) … Huge “prove it” game Friday night with 3-0 Amesbury, which averages 38.8 points a game so far.
10. Salem (2-2) … Hanging on, but needs a run of wins, starting now.
