Burrillville dominates Division I Rebels
BURRILLVILLE – According to veteran head coach Gennaro Ferraro, there’s a perfectly good reason why the helmets of the Burrillville High football team didn’t include the famous Bronco logo.
No, Burrillville hasn’t established an individual-based reward system where the coaches present the decal based on a player’s showing in practice or during games.
“We just didn’t have enough and they’re on back order,” Ferraro said with a laugh.
After having an easy time with Division I opponent South Kingstown on Saturday, perhaps the Broncos may stick with not featuring stickers on the helmet.
“I don’t know if they’re going to want them now,” Ferraro said after his Division II Broncos raced to a 49-23 win over the Rebels, one of the better D-I public school outfits over the past several seasons.
Burrillville gave the Alumni Field crowd plenty of reasons to cheer. The home team scored on its first possession and enjoyed a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. The lead grew to 42-7 at halftime and stood at 49-7 after the Bronco reserves capped off the first drive of the second half with a touchdown.
It was a dominant performance from a program that’s used to dominating the competition. The Broncos exited the Division III realm as back-to-back Super Bowl champs and were the D-IV victor as recent as 2014.
This fall, the Broncos seek to keep the good times rolling against a new set of rivals and will do so while featuring several familiar faces from last year’s squad, starting with seniors Jake Gelinas and Ryan Lockwood.
Gelinas passed for two first-quarter touchdown passes to senior Marcus Audet and added a fourth scoring strike right before the half – a 68-yard catchand-rumble by sophomore Robert Thatcher. Lockwood didn’t find the end zone, though the talented two-way contributor registered one of Burrillville’s three interceptions and also came up with a five-yard reception when the Broncos on their opening drive were faced with a fourth-and-short in their own territory.
“That’s nothing unusual as far as our gameplan,” Ferraro said when asked about going for it on fourth down.
As important as Gelinas and Lockwood are, the two-touchdown performance that Thatcher turned in was a very encouraging development. Thatcher was on the Broncos’ radar last year as a freshman and drew the nod as the starting tailback against South Kings- town.
With help from Burrillville offensive lineman Brennan Richards, Thatcher powered his way in for a oneyard score that turned the Lockwood interception into more points early in the second quarter. After the Rebels finally got on the scoreboard with 45.3 seconds left in the first half, the Broncos elected to keep their foot on the gas pedal. With 19.1 seconds remaining, Thatcher took a short swing pass from Gelinas and broke several tackles while galloping past his bench. The result was a 68yard score.
“He was a spectacular player as a freshman and he’s a special talent for sure,” Ferraro said about Thatcher. “He’s worked very hard.”
One of the Broncos’ three interceptions was returned for points as junior Aidan Tupper covered 52 yards on his way to pinning the Rebels into a 28-0 hole. The score was followed by one of six point-after tries that junior Shea Foisy succeeded in making. Like Thatcher and Audet, Tupper finished the contest with two trips to the end zone.
Going into the game, it appeared the Rebels owned a sizeable advantage in the trenches on both sides of the ball. One of South Kingstown’s linemen – senior Montaner Fresilli – is a URI commit. Led by Richards, Ross Lapierre, and Robert Barnes, the Broncos won the interior battle going away.
“Hopefully our guys will get looks from schools. They’re very talented,” Ferraro said. “They work well together and have been playing football for a long time. We knew about the challenge up-front and they more than surpassed that test.”
Even the BHS backups got into the scoring act as sophomore Jonathan Bergin connected on a 25-yard strike to freshman Matthew Gibeau. South Kingstown collected the game’s final two scores, both featuring touchdown passes from quarterback Brycen Maloney to Christovin Nhem.
“It wasn’t about beating a Division I team. It was about seeing what we had and filling in the gaps. We graduated 13 seniors from last year’s team and we’re trying to figure out who we are,” Ferraro said. “South Kingstown was the first game on the schedule and the way we responded to the challenge was great.”
Now it’s on to the next challenge. For Burrillville, that means a visit from Mount Hope in next Saturday’s D-II opener.