Daily Double
The Lincoln and Burrillville High football teams rolled to convincing victories on Saturday afternoon.
NORTH SMITHFIELD – Burrillville High varsity chief Gennaro Ferraro looked at an older Broncos’ fan just before his squad’s Division III-B showdown against Scituate early Saturday afternoon and stated – naturally with a sly grin – “Get ready for some fireworks, baby!’”
Not quite two hours later, following his club’s elementary 49-7 dismantling of the overwhelmed Spartans on the Northmen’s home turf, he explained his earlier statement. Uh, warning? “The way Scituate plays pass coverage, with some of their formations, it seems they’ll risk the blitz and cover man-to-man, and we like that kind of match-up,” Ferraro offered. “Our offense is predicated on being as 50-50 as possible with the pass and run. We love to run it, but if the pass is there, we’re going to throw the ball, no question.”
And so it passed. And passed some more.
Junior signal caller Jake Gelinas completed all eight of his passes (in less than two quarters) for 196 yards and two touchdowns to help lift the Broncos to a perfect 4-0 in league action (5-1 overall). Classmate Ryan Lockwood snatched both scoring passes for a combined 70 yards, while senior Nick Deering hauled in two more for 61 and twin brother Brandon, a transfer from Seekonk, had one for 13 (yet also a fumble recovery).
“It all starts with the offensive line, which has to pick up the blitz,” Ferraro explained. “Then it goes to Jake, who has to make a presnap read and an in-play read,” he continued. “At that point, it trickles down to the skill guys making the plays. In the first half, we did a really good job of that.” Is there a question? Burrillville, which claimed the pre-tilt coin toss and elected to receive, took the opening possession 61 yaeds on only five plays ending on Lockwood’s nine-yard snare of a Gelinas feed in the right section of the end zone. When officials whistled Scituate for encroachment on the point-after TD kick, with the ball 18 inches close to the goal line, Ferraro opted to got for two, and Gelinas succeeded with a toss to senior Josh Newell.
The Broncos immediately issued a threeand-out, and Newell returned the punt nine yards before Lockwood completed 61-yard pitch-and-catch on the initial snap of their second possession. Jenks added the first of his five extra points to move ahead 15-0 with 7:41 remaining in the stanza.
Thanks to junior Nate Tayes’ fumble recovery, BHS maneuvered a scant 39 yards on four snaps ending on senior Christian Bouvier’s eight-yard right-end sweep at 5:06.
On Scituate’s second snap, senior linebacker Tyler Richards picked off junior quarterback Joe Roy and raced 28 yards for the paydirt. It came, amazingly, 59 ticks after the previous score.
The Spartans actually used Roy’s 11-yard punt return to set up a “mini” drive to the Burrillville 42 before it stalled, though received a gift on the third play of the second quarter. Bouvier fumbled, and SHS senior Caleb Moron scooped up the pigskin and returned it 14 yards to the Broncos’ 3.
Both teams committed penalties over a sloppy sequence, one that included two BHS’ running-into-the kicker flags to keep it alive. In the end, however, Ferraro’s bunch stopped the Spartans twice on the 1, pushing Daniel Dwyer back to the 5 on the latter.
Six plays after that, Gelinas’ 32-yard completion to Nick Deering down the left sideline set up a six-play, 94-yard ownership, and junior tailback Matt Gongoleski closed it with a gritty, 22-yard sweep around the right end.
That made it 36-0, and Ferraro immediately decided to replace his starters with reserves and JV players.
They too succeeded, as Tayes directed a six-snap, 51-yard drive, the last a 10-yard toss to junior Adrian Cournoyer in the left flat of the end zone. On the play, Cournoyer outleaped Ryan Farias to haul it in with 15 ticks left before the break, giving the visitors the 42-0 cushion.
Scituate gained a bit of revenge for the beating on the initial kickoff of the third, senior standout Zach Simonelli racing 84 yards down the left sideline for the TD, and sophomore Logan Butkins drilled the PAT to make it 42-7.
With under 4:50 remaining in regulation, both teams surrendered turnovers, though Cournoyer’s pick of Roy resulted in a subsequent return to the BHS 40. Before the very next snap, assistant Kevin Randall yelled for the appropriate freshmen to take over the offense.
With Jonathan Bergin behind center, the Broncos sure did. Bobby Thatcher took a pitch around the left end, spun out of a tackle perhaps 10 yards later and sprinted 60 yards down the left sideline for the final TD.
“He’s going to be a good one,” Ferraro noted with a grin as wide as his biggest lineman’s shoulders.
For the record, besides Gelinas’ passing, the Broncos manufactured 253 ground yards on 28 handles, but that was hardly astounding. What was noteworthy came at the distribution: Christian Bouvier, four for 35 yards; Gongaleski, four for 46; Bouvier’s brother Dylan, seven for 51; and sophomore Nicholas Roy, eight for 42.
Still, Thatcher led his team in rushing with one touch. On the other side, especially early, superlative defensive efforts came from juniors Robert Barnes and Brandon DiChiaro; Richards; and Gongoleski.
“In the first half, our guys did a really good job of executing; we were way too sloppy in the second half,” Ferraro noted. “When we put the reserves in, we expect zero dropoff in (execution) from anybody on the field.
“We;re just not where we need to be yet,” he added. “But, overall, executing against the matchups we wanted exploit, we did pretty well.”
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