Revere’s Riazi gets in his kicks
Revere appeared to be well on its way to a third tough loss in a row against a Northeastern Conference power.
This time, the Patriots had a solution.
Sophomore kicker Rayan Riazi was called upon by coach Lou Cicatelli with one request — make a 34yard field goal to send the Lynn Classical game into overtime. Riazi was up to the task, draining his firstever field goal to tie the game at 16-16. Moments later, Riazi connected from 31 yards, giving Revere a 1916 victory.
“I was definitely nervous, but I looked at my teammates and I knew they trusted me,” Riazi said. “I’ve been working hard for it and I couldn’t have done it without my holder (Jonathan Murphy) and my snapper (Joshua Laurina).”
Cicatelli had no reservations about putting an untested 10th grader into a pressure situation. He saw the time and effort that Riazi has put into perfecting his craft and figured it wasn’t as much a gamble as others thought.
“I have a lot of confidence in Rayan,” Cicatelli said. “He comes down here every day, works very hard and is as solid a kid as you are going to find.”
The victory jump-started Revere’s season. The Patriots defeated Peabody a week later (27-25) to improve to 2-2, then called upon Riazi once again to don his Superman’s cape last Friday.
Medford took a 21-18 lead with 20 seconds left. The Patriots got the ball down to the Mustangs’ 27-yard line. With time left for one play, Cicatelli called upon Riazi to get the game into overtime.
With a hostile crowd in his ears, Riazi lined up a potential career-long try. As soon as he hit it, everyone knew there were going to get a fifth quarter of football. Cicatelli later said the kick would have been good from 48 yards out.
“Definitely the hardest kick I’ve ever had to attempt,” Riazi said. “The ball was on the left hashmark and I’ve never kicked one from there before.”
Riazi has built an impressive resume for someone with little aspirations of being a placekicker. Until late last summer, he was more interested in being Patriots punter Ryan Allen than kicker Stephen Gostkowski.
“I was mostly focusing on punting,” Riazi said. “Later in the summer, I tried to kick a few field goals and I was pretty good at it. I decided to go up to the kicking camps at UNH and just went from there.”
Much to the joy of the Revere Patriots.