Some thoughts on the local sports scene as I watch the snow fall down here at Gillette Stadium.
Could it happen? Could it really happen?
A full 21 years after Glenn Lacroix’s clearly good (that comment is clearly directed to Sondra (Barch) Longo, AHS ’89) field goal sent Central Catholic to the Super Bowl, could the MVC again come down to those two on Thanksgiving?
Sure, there is a ton of football to be played, but Andover put a huge nemesis in its rear-view mirror by knocking off Chelmsford.
If I had to size up the MVC large – and I’ve seen all the combatants – I would handicap the race this way.
1 And 1a – Central-andover, Andover-Central, you pick them. Two incredibly different teams, but each effective. Neither has a league blemish. I like the fight in both defenses. Solid stuff.
3. Billerica – Can we halt the Nick LaSpada is better than Mike Mastrullo talk over in Indian country? LaSpada is good, darn good. But in my eyes, and I’ve been glued to this conference for the better part of 25 years, Mastrullo is one of the top three skill athletes to play in this league. For you young folks, new to the scene, he was better than Dracut’s Matt Grimard. That’s how good Mastrullo was. That said the Indians probably need not just to win but to sweep through Central and Andover. I’m not sure they can do that. In the end, the upset loss to Tewksbury could prove the difference.
4. Chelmsford – Again, losses to Andover and Lawrence have the Lions on the backpedal.
5. Lowell – Rebuilding year.
All right, time to rant a bit.
We’ll start at Billerica-Lawrence first. A friend of mine called and asked for a score, so I told them. He asked what the Lawrence stands looked like.
He asked If Lawrence brought 80 fans with them. I told him they didn’t bring 30.
That’s a shame. I watch kids, good kids like Harvey Blanco, Francis Nova and Nick Elwell among many others, putting their bodies on the line for their school, and there are 23 fans in the stands, not including cheerleaders.
That’s so weak. Where are the alums, the teachers, the students themselves?
You go to these games and you see the same 30-40 faces at home, half of them on the road. Teachers have a ton of responsibility that doesn’t end at 3:10 every day.
If the kids need rides, the city can afford it. Get fan buses.
I know a couple of the younger teachers do home tailgates and that’s a start. The kids were there at Homecoming. But something has to be done about a tremendous apathy on the part of the staff there for these kids.
It’s truly sad when three different players ask me “Where’s Ms. Longo?” at the game. My wife is one of the few that attends, say 8 of 10 games, and the kids are disappointed because there are teachers who never show unless there’s a stipend attached. Billerica exactly is 16.33 miles from LHS.
All these academies are trying to promote unity and community. It’s time the people who matter most to these kids started to live up to their responsibilities.
And one more rant out of the game in ‘Rica.
The field at Calabrese Stadium is an absolute embarrassment, to the point that when Mike Yameen and his team got off the bus, they should have turned right around.
It was a mud bog, thick and slow, just deplorable, and this was before all the rain and the snow this weekend.
Mike wasn’t looking for an excuse, but I brought it up to him. He talked about how it’s the same for both teams.
And he’s right, the two teams deserve better.
“It’s just sad that a program that is as good as Billerica’s is, one of the premier programs in the state, has to play on something like this,” said Yameen. “It just makes me appreciate what we have all the more, I can tell you that.”
How is that mud bog after all this precip this weekend, going to be playable again this year?
Ok, enough on all that, I bring you to my Saturday game in the Granite State.
You want to talk abysmal shows of support, I give you 6-0 North vs. 6-0 Salem, before a hearty throng of 300.
When the Salem band left after halftime, I presume for a competition somewhere, it sliced 60 percent off of Salem’s fan support.
Again, this team is the unbeaten Division 1 leader.
My man, Alex LaRosa, led the spirited student section, all 11 of them.
What do you have to do to get people to a game?
Oh well.
I will say this. I don’t know if he’s big enough or fast enough, but Jerickson Fedrick has the look of a bigtime halfback.
Not since Matt Jordan lugged the rock at Pinkerton have I seen a running back make people miss like Fedrick does. And then he adds that next gear and accelerates away.
No slight to Max Jacques, who is the lead man and a spectacular high school running back, it’s just that Fedrick is bigger and translates better to the big college game. Watching this guy progress over the next 2.5 seasons should be a lot of fun.
Kudos to Salem, which has taken care of business against Londonderry, Pinkerton, North and South, and would need a major miracle not to hone in on the No. 1 playoff seed.
I’ll turn the venom to the officials for a minute now in that Salem-North game.
First, there are the ridiculous federation rules to deal with. Then you have officials with incredibly awful interpretations of those rules.
First, there is the offensive encroachment flag, for a receiver setting up in the neutral zone.
I was on the sideline for Pinkerton-Salem game weeks ago. When it was still close, Pinkerton had a drive killed by a ref throwing the flag when a receiver lined up in the neutral zone. It was a “zero tolerance” type of call. The Astros got flagged at least twice more for it. By all means, don’t tell the kid to move back that inch, throw the flag, it’s the rule. And you are Mr. referee with your little yellow hanky.
Fine, it’s the rule.
So Saturday, same thing happens and the guy on the sideline is doing the opposite, telling the kid to back up after he was set, to avoid the flag.
It’s the right thing, the smart thing, but how about some consistency.
Big effort by Pinkerton against Brockton only to come up short. That’s too bad. Combined with the 52-13 BG shellacking of CM, the Granite State made a nice little statement.
Finally, accept this as my final concession to Dave Dyer in the high school grid picks. I will never, ever beat him. After this post, his name will never, ever be mentioned by the Creature. I will pick games and that’s it.
The good news is, I’m killing him in our fantasy football league (Well, I’m really not, it’s close but all his guys have played and I have my kicker and QB going tonight).
Give me your thoughts on the MVC or the football season so far, we’re at the midway point.
And yes, Name, I know the MVC is God – not good, God – and all worlds revolve around it.
