Classical dodges thunderstorm, defeats Gloucester

LYNN – Who could blame the Lynn Classical football team for being more than a little excited after knocking off Gloucester, 28-14, at Manning Field on Friday on the back of four rushing touchdowns from John Finnigan and a defense that intercepted five passes.Cllick here for a photo gallery of last night’s game.It marked the only the second time in 20 years that the Rams beat Gloucester and it insured that the two-time defending Super Bowl champs would have a losing season.”We talked to the kids all week about having beaten them only once in 20 years,” Classical coach Tim Phelps said. “It’s a rivalry game and it’s a nice win. But we have a lot of things that we need to fix and take care of.”Classical struggled at times to get the Gloucester offense off the field as Kyle Lucido was a terror, rushing for 160 yards and a touchdown while also adding a 42 yard touchdown catch early in the fourth quarter after the game had been delayed because of lightning.Fortunately for Classical, Finnigan was in the midst of perhaps his finest game of the year.Lucido’s touchdown catch cut Classical’s lead to 15-14 with 7:19 remaining. And Gloucester got the ball back with 5:27 left but Jordan Brown’s interception of Lenny Taormina gave the Rams a short field.Finnigan didn’t waste long in striking as he took it 26 yards, juking two defenders en route to the endzone for a 22-15 lead with 4:31 remaining.The final chapter in the exorcising of demons would be provided by the Ram defense as Brown picked off Taormina for the second straight possession with 2:12 remaining. Two plays later, Finnigan capped his remarkable day with a 20 yard dash to the house.”Johnny really ran well. That play was able to work well for us,” Phelps said. “But we were still too sloppy at times.”Gloucester actually powered to a 6-0 lead midway through the first as Lucido capped a 57 yard drive with a seven yard touchdown. The lead lasted all of 59 seconds as Finnigan took the second snap for the Rams 70 yards to paydirt and a 7-6 lead.It stayed 7-6 through a sloppy second quarter that saw both teams turn the ball over, capped by Malcolm Leng-King’s second interception of the half for Classical.”We made too many mistakes,” Phelps said. “And we struggled a lot to get them off the field.”Classical forced a three and out to begin the second half and Finnigan promptly shredded the Fishermen defense again with a 43-yard dash down the left sideline to make it 15-6 with 6:44 left in the third.