West Lynn Pop Warner is already thinking ahead. With two of its teams a mere two wins away from a trip to Disney World in December, the organization is thinking about how it’s going to raise money to get them there.”If you can do something, please get the word out that we’re looking for donations and sponsorships,” says league president Amy Robinson, in her second year in charge of the organization.If she needs to ask anyone how frantic that search for money can be, she need go no farther than across the city. East Lynn’s C team made it all the way down there last year – winning a game, even. And once again, East Lynn is knocking on the door. This time, it’s the B squad – comprised of many of the boys from last year’s C team – that is two wins away from going down to Disney again.Click here for a Pop Warner photo gallery.”I’ve got to give this group a lot of credit,” East Lynn coach Duke Wilson (who is also president) said. “A lot of people were down on them, because of the loss of some of the other kids. But they rallied. It shows their character. There are a lot of quality kids here.”Four of the boys who were penciled in as feature players on that B squad could not play because of their pending legal situation with regard to an assault last summer on a Guatemalan man near Lynn Tech.But when the Bulldogs travel to Malden Catholic Sunday to play Worcester in the state championship game (1:30), that situation will be well behind them, Wilson said.”Our mentality is that we’re champions ourselves,” Wilson said. “Our kids didn’t look at it any other way than to want to prove to themselves, and everybody else, that they’re still good. The kids just rallied around (the situation).”For West Lynn, going to one state championship – let alone two – is a unique experience. And unlike East Lynn, which only has to go to Malden, West Lynn’s A and B squads will truck on out to Ashburnham to play at the Oakmont Regional School. The B squad, coached by Maurice Cordy, starts at 4 against South County. Coach Dennis Murphy’s A team follows at 6 against Shrewsbury.”This is the furthest anyone from West Lynn has ever gone,” said Cordy. “One of our teams made it to the Eastern Mass. final ? and lost. But this is the only time anyone from West Lynn has made it this far.”Murphy, who, like Cordy, is in his first year as a head coach, marvels at how focused his players are.”I’ve never seen kids pumped up the way our kids were pumped up after (winning the Eastern Mass. championship last Sunday),” Murphy said. “I can only imagine how they’re going to be if we go all the way to Disney.”But,” he said, “we have to play two games to get to that point. And you can’t play them all in the same week.”All three coaches, in fact, have stressed the importance of having good, focused players who shine in all aspects of life, and not just on the athletic field.”We have six or seven kids who have a school GPA of over 90 percent or better,” Cordy says. “That helps, because when I game-plan, they’re pretty smart and they can pick things up.”It doesn’t hurt, either, that some of the players who have positive academic credentials are also among Cordy’s best, such as Brad Scuzzarella, an eighth-grader at Breed.”When you have your good players achieving like that, the other kids follow their lead,” Cordy says. “If it’s the other way around, and your leaders aren’t that way, kids will follow them, too.”Murphy also is impressed with his squad.”They’re good kids all the way around,” he said. “They’re very focused. They may be some of the best kids I’ve ever coached.”Wilson would echo that sentiment about his players.”We’re a close-knit group,” he said. “There’s a lot of team camaraderie. I have some of the nicest kids I’ve coached since I began coaching.”Among his top players are Christian Costa, a tackle; Marcos Echevarria and Lucas Harris, both of whom play quarterback (Harris also leads the team in interceptions, with 10); receivers Jordan Brown and Fred Hogan Jr.; Zach Lozz
