Winthrop hopes for a winning season

Winthrop’s football team is rolling into its annual Thanksgiving game against Revere straight off of a huge 27-18 win against NEC-Small leading Marblehead, a team the Patriots lost to 26-7 back in early October. The Vikings look to continue the team’s seven-game winning streak on Turkey Day against the Revere.”One of our goals in practice (leading up to the Marblehead game),” Winthrop coach Sean Driscoll said, “was to really set the tone (for the rest of the season). We had a really good week of practice, and we thought that we would be able to catch Marblehead in a bit of a ‘sandwich week.’ It has given us good momentum going into this one-game championship.”All four wins that the Vikings have on their record have come in impressive fashion, including: the Marblehead game, a pair of shutouts against Salem (31-0) and Saugus (44-0), and a 16-6 win over a dangerous 6-4 Classical team who scored 208 points this season.It has otherwise been a tough season of struggles for Winthrop. The Vikings have been forced into featuring eight different starting lineups through the first 10 weeks of this season.”We’ve had a whole bunch of injuries that have derailed us,” said Driscoll. “It has been a bit of an unlucky year.”In the five games that Frank Ambrosino managed to play in this season, he amassed 492 yards and seven touchdowns on 80 carries. His biggest week was against the Magicians, when he rushed for 136 yards and three touchdowns.”Had we not lost (Ambrosino) our season may have gone a little differently,” said Driscoll.Another huge loss this season for Winthrop, was junior running back and linebacker Nick McCarthy. He ran for 632 yards and six touchdowns in his seven games of action this year. He has been out the last two games, and it is questionable to whether he will be able to make a Thanksgiving Day return.While the Vikings were hampered with injuries, it did allow some of the younger kids to step up in their steed and develop some ever-important experience.”Our young kids have really had a chance to shine,” said Driscoll. “(Sophomore James) Barker for instance – he was thrown into the starting lineup and has developed into a very good linebacker with a chance to finish the season with 100 tackles.”Barker leads the team with 95 tackles heading into action. Other players who took full advantage of the opportunities were offensive and defensive lineman Nick Doonan and tight end and defensive tackle Anthony Hatizavus.Winthrop has nine seniors whose high school football career will be coming to an end: James Evans, Will Milano, Ambrosino, Robert Deeb, Keith Staiso, Anthony Spinnazola, Santiago Ospina, Mark Jenkins and James Doherty.Cronin praised Milano, who completed 65 of 138 attempts for seven touchdowns but threw 13 interceptions, as a great leader.”Will (Milano) never comes off of the field,” said Cronin. “He is on every team and a great season.”Deeb and Jenkins were two of his better targets this year. Deeb, who was another player to miss multiple games but will be at full capacity on Thursday, had 26 catches for 325 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Jenkins had 18 catches for 332 yards and three touchdowns.Cronin pointed out that Revere has had an equally tough year when it comes to injuries.”They have also had some tough luck throughout the year,” said Cronin. “But they still managed to pick up a great win against Peabody.”Cronin also mentioned Will and Trey Weathers as well as Paul Norton as serious threats that the team will focus on.”Trey (Weathers) is a very solid running back,” said Cronin. “He plays very hard. (Paul) Norton does a nice job controlling the offense and Will (Weathers) is a very good two-way player. This is going to battle. It’s going to be a great one-game championship.”