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Central Catholic Raiders Football '11

Fri, Sep 23, 2011 07:00 PM @ Central Catholic
Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final
Dracut 0 0 7 7 14
Central Catholic 7 8 7 0 22

Central gets big win over Dracut

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Friday, September, 23 By Bill Burt

LAWRENCE — In another year against another team, Chuck Adamopoulos might have knocked over a water cooler en route to the winning team bus.

His Central Catholic team, which improved to 2-1 with a 22-14 win over Dracut last night, made enough mistakes to lose. Particularly when it came to putting the game away, which didn't finally happen until after the last minute onside kick bounced twice before going out of bounds.

There were three drive-killing penalties, including one at the end of the first half at the Dracut 2-yard line — for an illegal substitution — that botched a potential three-touchdown lead. There were two more drives halted deep in Dracut's territory because of dropped passes.

"I probably should be upset a little bit," said the sweating Central coach afterward. "But it's still early in the season. We're getting better every week, despite some of our mistakes. And we just beat Dracut, which handled us pretty good last year (28-14) and beat two pretty good teams (St. John's and Somerville) before this ... I'm happy about that."

What he was happy about was the fact that Central controlled the game almost from the opening minutes. Not only did Central rush for 244 yards, but it controlled the ball for 30 of the game's 44 minutes.

It helped that after Dracut was stopped on fourth down on its first drive, Central quarterback Matt McDermott romped 40 yards on the Raiders' first offensive play to the Dracut 19. Six plays later, McDermott dove in the end zone for a lead Central never relinquished.

"I was happy about our defense, which really had a big job to do with their offensive line," said Adamopoulos. "It just seemed like we made a lot of key stops and our offense did their job."

McDermott and Santino Brancato rushed for 115 yards apiece. But their roads were a little different. McDermott did it over 26 carries, rushing for nine first downs, while Brancato needed only six touches, which included TD runs of 18 and 44 yards.

But a case could be made that the MVP of the game was senior Nick Parent. He was in on the safety, which came early in the second quarter when a snap went over the quarterback's head and into the end zone.

Parent also recovered a botched punt return on Dracut's 24. Three plays later, Brancato scored from 18 yards out for the 15-0 lead.

In the fourth quarter, when Dracut had the ball at the Central 11 on third down, Parent had an eight-yard sack to end the scoring threat.

"He's also our center and he only weighs about 170 pounds," said Adamopoulos. "He's always around the ball. The kid is tough."

Speaking of tough, Central appears to have a good one in freshman running back Michael Balsalmo. He had two big first down runs and averaged 20 yards on three punt returns.

"For a kid that was playing football in eighth grade last year, he is not afraid to pound the ball up the middle," said Adamopoulos. "Yes, we are excited about Michael."

Central, now 2-1 and 1-0 in the MVC, plays at Tewksbury next Saturday.

"I's going to be an interesting league this year," said Adamopoulos. "There are a lot of teams that have a chance to win this thing. With a win like this, I'm hoping we are in the mix."

 

Game Statistics:

First Quarter

CC — Matt McDermott 1 run (Tommy Jenoski kick)

      Second Quarter 

CC — Nick Parent (safety)

CC — Santino Brancato 18 run (kick failed)

Third Quarter

D — Bryant Tuff 12 yard reception from Jimmy Ryan (Jacob McShane kick)

CC — Brancato 44 run (Bryce Santos kick)

Fourth Quarter

D — Jeff Breen 23 yard reception from Ryan (McShane kick)

 


INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

RUSHING: CC - Santino Brancato 6-115, Matt McDermott 26-115, Michael Balsalmo 4-12, Devon Lattrell 1-2; Dracut - Leo Lakmany 10-85, Jimmy Ryan 11-36; Zach Bassett 3-13 

PASSING: CC - McDermott 5-14-1, 78 yards; Dracut - Ryan 10-25-0, 116

RECEIVING: CC - Balsalmo 2-23, Alexander Estrella 1-9, John Bilsky 1-11, Cody Demers 1-35

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