State vocational tourney still in Lynn Tech’s sights

The Lynn Tech football team was loaded with seniors this season and although that doesn’t always translate into success, it did this year. The Tigers are heading into Wednesday night’s Thanksgiving matchup against St. Mary’s with a 7-3 record and a shot at making the state Vocational Super Bowl.”The captains and all the seniors really worked hard in the off season,” Tech coach Gary Sverker said. “They’re a tight-knit group. They actually hang around together. The chemistry on the team has been good since the beginning of the year.”Tech won last year’s showdown, but Sverker isn’t counting on past success to get the job done.”They have their same kids back. We have our same kids back. It’s always a hard-hitting game.The season got off to a wet start when the Tigers played Dorchester in a torrential rain. The game actually had to be moved to Madison Park, which has turf, because of the weather. Tech won that game 14-8 and then went on to beat Marian, 36-24.”That was a big win because we lost to them last year. They had a lot of their kids back. It was a big test for us.”Against Minuteman, the Tigers showed they could bend, but not break. After taking a 14-0 lead, turnovers got the better of them and Mustangs crept right back into the game. Tech escaped with a 14-12 win.”That was a tough game. It was nice to win a close one,” Sverker said.That set the state for a meeting with Whittier. Whittier was undefeated at the team and is still that way heading into the final game of the regular season. It was pouring rain for that game as well.Tech lost, 38-12, but even though a few dropped balls and other mistakes didn’t help the effort, they didn’t decide the outcome either.”We played for a while, but we dropped some balls, made some mistakes, but they were forced by a good team. We got beat by a better team,” Sverker said.Ryan Murphy, one of the three senior captains along with Steven Caisse and Joe Brady, played a monster game in the Tigers 48-36 loss to Manchester. Tech was up 36-14 at the half, but Manchester turned things around, stripping the ball and then running it back to the Tech 10, which led to a touchdown. Murphy had 255 total yards in that game, along with three touchdowns, two extra points and an interception he ran back for a touchdown. This was one of a couple of 200-plus yard games for Murphy.”In the big games, he comes up big,” Sverker said.Tech bounced back the following week with a 30-14 win over Greater Lowell and then sent Mystic Valley packing, 36-6. Brady caught two touchdown passes that game and Murphy, one.Shawsheen was up next and that game turned into thriller. Tech trailed 29-14 in the third quarter, but came back to win, 36-29.”That was a great comeback, a great game,” Sverker said. “It was our first real big win.The following week was one Sverker and the troops would probably like to forget. The Tigers lost to Northeast Regional by a whopping 48-0 score.”It got away from us early,” Sverker said, recalling how a touchdown, an interception and a fumble recovery gave Northeast a 22-0 lead before they knew what had hit them. The silver lining in that cloud was provided by senior David Mover, who had a couple of sacks and took home the Ricky Drislane Award presented annually at that game.The question the next week was could the Tigers bounce back from a loss like that and the answer was a resounding, yes. Although Greater Lawrence running back Joe Pizzuto was a runaway train, racking up about 260 yards, he didn’t have the juice to put the Reggies over the top thank in large part to the play of Pedro Martinez and Joe Brady, who each made some big plays on him.. Greater Lawrence was 7-2 heading into that game and Tech was 6-3.Beginning with the captains, Sverker senior class has been an impressive one. Murphy cracked the 1,000-yard rushing barrier against Greater Lawrence, despite missing the Northeast Regional game due to a thigh bruise.”He’s a big play football player and when things have to be done, he finds to