Winning season at stake Thursday for Classical

The Lynn Classical football team came into this season with a new coach and a new look after the graduation of a senior class that went out with a 46-6 win over Lynn English last Thanksgiving.The Rams have experienced their share of ups and downs this season under first year coach Tim Phelps, but Classical comes into Thursday mornings (10) date with the Bulldogs looking to finish with a winning record.”This is the game where you throw the records out and play as hard as you can,” Phelps said. “Most of these kids grew up with the kids from English and its always a competitive game because they’re playing the kids they grew up with.”The Rams (5-4, 2-2 NEC North) have struggled to put points on the board this season, but also have ridden the back of a defense that has been as stingy as any in the conference.Despite their youth in a lot of critical positions, Classical has allowed only 16.7 points per game, one of the lowest marks in the NEC. And its that units maturation that Phelps sees as one of the best things about this season.”It’s fun to see the younger players getting better,” Phelps said. “The defense really has been good. We had a lot of young kids there and they’ve learned what to do and have played well.”Classical has posted one shutout (against Revere) and has held all but three teams under 21 points this season. The one thing that has struggled at times is the Classical offense, which has used both Jasper Grassa and Kashaun Avery at quarterback.It also has seen injuries to running back Cam Smith and has run into a pair of stout defenses belonging to Catholic Memorial and Gloucester, who both could be playing in the postseason.”The offenses hasn’t put up a ton of points,” Phelps said. “But we’ve had a bunch of long drives and that’s been just enough some times.”The Rams began the season with a dominating 41-6 win over St. Mary’s and former coach Matt Durgin. Turnovers doomed them in a 28-6 loss to Beverly before Smith’s last second run gave the Rams a 7-6 upset win over Winthrop on a rainy Friday at Manning.Next up for Classical was Catholic Conference power CM. The Rams defense played admirably but the offense struggled in a 21-0 loss to the Knights. They followed that with a workmanlike 19-7 win over Danvers.Classical began NEC North play at Peabody, losing Smith to an injury in the third quarter of a 21-20 loss to the Tanners that was decided by a mishandled extra point snap. The Rams then ran into the buzzsaw that was Gloucester as the Fishermen rolled to a 49-0 victory en route to their North Division title.But the Rams rebounded with a solid 21-12 win at home over Salem and then played what Phelps called “their best game of the season” in a 28-0 road win over Revere.”We had a lot of young guys who didn’t have experience and now they have nine games under their belt,” Phelps said. “Their not rookies anymore and these kids want to go out with a win.”Phelps also knows that the Bulldogs explosive spread offense will give his young defense plenty to think about.”They are very talented and fast,” Phelps said. “And have a lot of athletes and they get the ball to them.”But Phelps also knows that no matter who is on the field on Thursday, it usually winds up being entertaining.”They can be 10-0 and us 0-10. It doesn’t matter,” Phelps said. “You have to believe that this is more important to the kids than the Beverly-Salem game or the others because this is for the city championship.”