Things haven’t gone quite according to plan for the Lynn Classical football team this season, but head coach Tim Phelps hopes to end the year on an upswing against English in the teams’ Thanksgiving Day game at Manning Field (10).”This year has been a little bit disappointing,” Phelps said, “but with a win on Thanksgiving, you can call it a successful year.”The Rams come into the game with a 4-5 record after a frustrating loss to Peabody. Yet Phelps likes what he has seen from his team in recent practices.”Practices have been pretty good,” Phelps said. “They’ve been spirited.”Quarterback John Finnigan, who has battled a hand injury this season, is healthy for the season finale, his coach said.”I think he’s focused and ready to go,” Phelps said. “He’s played well for us.”The coach had positive words for all three of his captains: Finnigan, Malcolm Leng-King and Calvin Ebieshuwa.”(Leng-King’s) a good kid,” Phelps said. “He works hard. He had a couple of interceptions (in the secondary) in key times of big games.”As for Ebieshuwa, “he’s been a good player for us at linebacker,” Phelps said.The offense has gotten some help from running back Brad Scuzzarella.”He’s played very well at times,” Phelps said. “He’s a young kid, a little inconsistent. Recently he’s been playing well. He works hard. It’s nice to see when a kid works hard, he works out.”The season began promisingly for the Rams as they surprised Western Mass. power East Longmeadow, 32-26, in the opener.”They have a pretty good program out West,” Phelps said. “To start off the season 1-0 is always good. It’s nice to beat some competition ? but it’s only one game.”Indeed, after that win, the Rams lost two straight, including a 21-0 decision against host Malden. Later in the season, English would win a close 10-0 game over Malden.”They won and we lost (to Malden),” Phelps said. However, he said, “Sometimes football is more about matchups. (Malden) is a pretty good team (that is having) a good year. I don’t know how much you can point from that, if we try to run and English is more spread. We have differing schemes and different matchups.”At times, Phelps’ playbook sounds a little bit like that of run-oriented Denver Broncos coach John Fox.”In general, we like to run,” Phelps said. “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to. We’d like to run the ball every single play, but English is playing great football right now.”When the Rams are on defense, they’ll face the challenge of containing tall English quarterback Jermaine Kelly.”One thing is that if he starts running, which he’s pretty good at, we’ll have to kind of team-tackle him,” Phelps said. “He’s pretty tough. Looking at film, you don’t see people tackle him one-on-one.”The coach sounded like he was hoping for a bit more from his lines.”We were inconsistent,” he said. “That’s one reason for our record. If you can win on both sides upfront, you’re doing really well.”