Gostkowski injury reminds local teams of kickers’ importance

As stinging as the loss of Stephen Gostkowski’s services was, the importance of a kicker isn’t confined to the New England Patriots.Local high school football teams on the North Shore know the value of having a reliable performer on kickoffs, extra points and field goals. From interviews with several coaches, it seems that the position of kicker carries a mixture of risk, responsibility and reward for the student-athletes who earn it.Making their markHow does a coach find someone who can kick the ball between the uprights in the first place?”We usually do, ‘Let’s see, who can kick?'” said Lynn Classical coach Tim Phelps, whose kicker is also his quarterback, Nick Grassa. “The best one will end up (with the position).”At Peabody, coach Scott Wlasuk has seen one of his kickers groom another.”I was fortunate that my son (current junior Sean Wlasuk) saw Justin Provencher as a role model last year,” Coach Wlasuk said. “Justin worked with him when he had the opportunity.”Provencher served as the Tanners’ kicker until he graduated with the Class of 2010; he is now at Merrimack College. Sean Wlasuk has succeeded Provencher this season.Kickers’ roles vary with their team. Grassa’s contributions to the offense in that role seem to come mainly on points after, while Wlasuk’s include field goals and points after. Both PATs and field goals have their own particular importance.”It’s very hard to get two points (on a conversion),” Phelps said, adding that a reliable kicker would provide seven points and teams would “not worry about six or eight.”He got a taste of what it is like to face an opponent with a field-goal kicker in the Rams’ season opener, when they traveled to Catholic Memorial.”That was the difference, the difference in the game,” he said of Classical’s eventual 21-14 loss. “They kicked two or three field goals. We had CM pinned in the 15-yard line on fourth-and-10. We had come off and stopped them. Most teams in our conference have no kicker like that. (However, he praised English kicker Cory Burt.) At the goal line, you want to score touchdowns. But on fourth-and-long, if you get a field goal, you come away with points.”Bumps in the roadGostkowski’s injury left the Patriots scrambling for a replacement, even considering wide receiver Wes Welker in their loss to the Cleveland Browns. A kicker’s position seems to have its pitfalls.”Obviously, something in the leg would be more common than in the upper body,” Phelps said.Wlasuk and his son are all too familiar with the injury issue, as the younger Wlasuk is suffering from a hip flexor strain and will be a game-time decision when the Tanners play English on Friday.”You get a lot of stress in your hips and lower back,” Coach Wlasuk said.He added that kickers may face injury as a result of other actions than booting the ball through the uprights.”You’re exposed to getting hit on the follow-through, on teams coming to blocks,” he said.Such injuries are not limited to kickers.”We had a punter early in the year who broke part of his leg in practice,” Phelps said. “The kid blocking the kick ran into (the punter’s) leg. He’s out for the season.”Going the distanceWhile the risks and responsibilities of kicking are substantial, the rewards are also significant.After Grassa struggled earlier this season, Phelps said his kicker made a slight adjustment. The move paid off and Grassa has connected on all nine of his extra-point kicks in the Rams’ past two games, the last one being a 28-0 win over Peabody last Friday.And then there is the thrill of the dramatic kick, a thrill the Patriots know well from their three Super Bowl wins and a thrill Wlasuk experienced against Winthrop earlier this season with 10 seconds before halftime of a game the Tanners won.”We had a decision to make a 32-yard field goal or throw it into the end zone,” he said of what would become “one of my most rewarding experiences of all my years coaching.”Sean Wlasuk came out of a crowd of players, holding up his kicking tee