RallyNorth.net

Central Catholic, despite shuffling its lineup, easily won a home quad meet to improve to 10-0.

Reece Millington recorded his 100th career victory as Haverhill opened its season with an easy quad-meet sweep over Arlington (66-12), Marlboro (48-29) and Acton-Boxboro (54-13).

In the match of the night, Connor Ford delivered a 4-3 decision at 126 to highlight North Andover's 56-22 victory over Marlboro.

 Central Catholic swept a quad meet at Reading, the key win being a 34-33 defeat of the host team. Brandon Desfosses had the pivotal win for the Raiders (9-1), bumping up to 152 pounds and beating Lowell Holiday Tournament placer Adam Norton handily, 12-5.

MARLBORO — Sometimes, it’s just as important how a team starts a game as how it finishes. Such was the case last night as Central Catholic fell behind early during a sloppy first quarter and dropped its opener at Marlboro, 9-7. The Raiders gave up a 62-yard pass play on the third play from scrimmage and surrendered a 13-yard TD run on the next play to fall behind 6-0. The Panthers added a field goal eight plays after intercepting a pass on Central’s third offensive play of the game. The Raiders then moved the ball for a pair of first downs, but two dropped passes and two motion penalties forced them to punt. “That’s kind of how we were playing in the preseason,” said Central coach Chuck Adamopoulos. “We tend to shoot ourselves in the foot. ... We showed some composure after the first quarter, but we just had too many mistakes. “This is as young a team as I’ve had and we’re going to have growing pains.” Central did score early in the second, four plays after recovering a fumbled punt, when Santino Brancato bulled his way into the end zone from nine yards out. Tommy Jenoski kicked the extra point, making it 9-7. The Raiders did put together one nice drive late in the half, moving from their own 47 to the Marlboro 6-yard-line, but they failed to convert on a fourth-and-2. The second half was a defensive battle as both teams managed just 54 yards of total offense with Central unable to cross midfield once. “We just had a couple of big plays and they didn’t,” said Marlboro coach Sean Mahoney. “That defensive stop before the half was huge.” Among those playing well defensively for the Raiders were Brancato, Patrick Hammond, Matt Kando and Devon Lattrell, the latter of whom recovered a fumble. “We’ll get better,” vowed Adamopoulos. 

North Andover lost only three matches all day in a series of romps at Marlboro, crushing Norwood (62-3), Arlington (59-3) and the host team (54-6) to improve to 12-0. 

LAWRENCE —  It was far from perfect, as few opening games are, but there were plenty of promising signs for Central Catholic’s football team last night.

The Raiders pulled away late for a solid 28-14 victory over a strong Marloboro club and showed potential on both sides of the ball.

MARLBORO — The weather conditions got worse late in the fourth quarter last night, but they were pretty dreary all night long for the Central Catholic offense.

Operating against an experienced Marlboro club, the Raiders managed only six first downs and 87 yards of offense in a 14-0 setback.