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TOPSFIELD | The atmosphere was a festive one at Masconomet Regional High School last night.

With Homecoming Week winding down, a carnival-like atmosphere took place outside of Roberts Field. Hundreds of students, teachers and parents partook in everything from eating sausages and fried dough to trying to sink various school educators in a dunk tank.

Don't expect a letdown from 7-0 Masconomet tonight at home (7 p.m.) even though the matchup with 2-4 Amesbury is meaningless on paper. Masconomet's goal, of course, is to win the Cape Ann League Large division and the Chieftains wrap up the season with divisional contests against Pentucket, Triton and North Andover. Amesbury is in the CAL Small division, so Masco could afford a loss, so to speak.

Lawrence High, stumbling at 1-5 and rife with disciplinary benchings, was the ultimate wounded puppy.

Unbeaten Masconomet pushed the Lancers into a corner and refused to relent, laying a rain-soaked 34-7 beating on the host club last night.

IPSWICH | Masconomet's undefeated season was never really in jeopardy as the visitors ran through the mud and were too slick for the Ipswich Tigers, 42-8 last night.

Senior T.C. Mannetta led a quartet of running backs for the 6-0 Chieftains, gaining 72 yards on just four carries, including the a 51-yard touchdown run in the early minutes.

TOPSFIELD -- Masconomet football coach Jim Pugh didn't have a pep talk prepared for halftime. Even if he did, his team never would have allowed him the time to deliver it.

The Chieftains took it upon themselves to turn things around after getting overpowered by Wilmington in the first half last night. Masco took control in the trenches, and erased a seven-point halftime deficit for a 17-14 win.

It seems like the games just keep getting tougher for unbeaten Masconomet.

After the Chieftains (4-0) dismantled Bishop Fenwick, 35-14, in the third week of the season, they had to bounce back and play long-time Cape Ann League rival Hamilton-Wenham the following weekend. Then, after their 29-22 victory over the Generals, they immediately started looking at the next challenge.

Masconomet football coach Jim Pugh moved to Massachusetts in 1973, but he could never abandon his New York roots.

Pugh, 57, grew up on Long Island and played football and basketball at Chaminade High School in Elmont, N.Y., where he was the All-Long Island quarterback his senior year (1967). He earned a basketball scholarship to Hoftstra University, where he also played football.

WENHAM -- If momentum were a material object owned permanently by a particular person or group of people, Masconomet's Chris Splinter would have left Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in handcuffs Saturday afternoon.

Andrew Morency sat in the Donaldson Field stands on Sunday and watched the Masconomet football team dismantle a very good Bishop Fenwick club.

Before Morency had even made it to his car in the parking lot after the Chieftains' 35-14 victory, he was already thinking of ways to make sure his Hamilton-Wenham Generals weren't Masconomet's next victim.

PEABODY | The festive atmosphere was unmistakable at Bishop Fenwick's football game last night. The Crusaders played in the glow of permanent lights on their new artificial turf field before a big crowd on a perfect weather night.