Item Football 2009: English is hoping to build off last year’s success

For the Lynn English football team and first year head coach Peter Holey, the 2008 season had to be categorized as an absolute success.Changing to a spread offense and a new defensive scheme, the Bulldogs found themselves in Gloucester late in the season playing for a chance to earn the program’s first postseason berth in almost two decades. And though Gloucester defeated them that night and eventually reached the Super Bowl, the Bulldogs finished the year 7-3 and had one of the leading offenses and defenses in the Northeastern Conference.Last year’s version of the Bulldogs though was a senior laden club as English will have to replace 17 graduated seniors that saw plenty of playing time.”The goal is to win every year,” Holey said. “We have to replace a lot of kids but it looks like we are going to be very athletic but inexperienced.”English will be replacing the bulk of its starting backfield and many of its weapons on the outside in its spread offense. Quarterback Jesse Fowler is now at Merrimack with wide receivers Justin Young and Charlie Rucker also departed. Young is now at Bentley.The Bulldogs also have to replace the man who was calling the plays last year as offensive coordinator Brian Vaughan has departed to take the head coaching job at Pope John. Former English player Steve Hill will assume the play calling duties this season.”Steve is very familiar with the system we run,” Holey said. “And so far, he has done an excellent job.”Tyler MacDonald will be the man in the shotgun running the show as he will assume the starting quarterback duties after leading the Bulldogs JV team a year ago. MacDonald played for Holey in Pop Warner and the English coach is confident in his abilities.”Tyler did a nice job with the JV’s last year and he is definitely ready to step up to the next level,” Holey said.Helping shoulder the load will be returning running backs Jermaine Patterson and Sam Hill along with Christian Figueroa. Travonne Berry-Rogers will join junior Omali Rodriguez as the go-to guys on the outside.Jarred Dwyer, Matt McManus, Eric Sutley and Josh Baseman will help anchor the offensive line in front of MacDonald.On the other side of the ball, English will look to defensive ends Derek Stevens and Nick Flowa to anchor the defensive line. Hill and Joe Plesses will anchor the linebacker core.Holey also is looking for big contributions from a pair of transfers in Cole Gentile, over from St. Mary’s and Matt Vargo, who comes from Lynnfield.English opened camp with 65 players and will have 80-to-85 when freshmen join the fray.”We have a lot of kids that are familiar with the system and the level of discipline that I expect,” Holey said. “They have settled into that nicely and have worked very hard in the off-season.”English opens the season with a road trip to Lawrence tomorrow before getting into the challenging Northeastern Conference North.”Everybody is going to be better,” Holey said about the league.