North Reading wins slugfest over Lynnfield

NORTH READING — With temperatures barely hitting above the 30-degree mark and wind gusts of 20 mph, it’s probably a good thing the action was hot in the 55th annual Lynnfield-North Reading match-up at Arthur Kenney Field.View Photo GalleryNorth Reading won 42-35 in a game that saw the teams combine for 77 points and nearly 900 yards of total offense. Neither team attempted a punt.North Reading dominated the line of scrimmage and held an incredible advantage in time of possession (37 minutes to the Pioneers’ 7)and, true to their style, simply rode the back of senior captain C.J. McCarthy.McCarthy set a Hornets’ single-season rushing record midway through the third quarter. He scored five touchdowns, ran for 279 yards on 47 carries and showed the fans why he is the leading scorer in Eastern Massachusetts. He finished the season with 200 total points.Lynnfield came into the game with a 9-1 record and a chance to become only the second team in program history to win 10 games in a season. It took just 19 seconds to get on the board when junior speedster Jonathan Knee simply left everyone in the dust with a 64-yard run into the end zone for a 7-0 Lynnfield lead (Daniel Bronshvayg kicked the extra point).From that point on until late in the half, each team would score on each possession. Finally, with two minutes left in the half, junior Cam Rondeau broke through the line to deny the Hornets on fourth-and- three from the Pioneers’ 6-yard line. He dropped senior Ryan Sanborn for a three-yard loss in what would be the Pioneers’ only defensive stop of the game.Starting from its own nine with two minutes left in the half and a 20-12 lead, Lynnfield came out throwing with a halfback option play. Knee’s pass was intended for wide receiver Matt Kramich, but it was intercepted by McCarthy who returned it 34 yards for a touchdown. He would have another pick later in the game.Five plays and 21 yards later, McCarthy punched it in from the 11 to make it 20-18 and after a successful two-point conversion, the game was tied and remained that way until halftime.”We like to mix it up and have used that play successfully in the past. We just didn’t execute. You can’t have turnovers like that, especially so deep in our own territory,” Lynnfield coach Neal Weidman said. “Today we just couldn’t get our defense off the field, and you can’t score if you don’t have the ball.”The second half was more of the same with North Reading executing one long drive after another, eating up huge chunks of time. With three of their starting linebackers out of the game with injuries, the Pioneers gamely gave it their all. At the end of the day, they had no answer for McCarthy, whose 47 carries in the game was 13 more than Lynnfield’s total plays from scrimmage (34).Lynnfield’s all-time touchdown leader, senior captain Kyle McGah, scored two more for the Pioneers on runs of one and 47 yards. He finished with 102 yards rushing on 13 carries and tacked on another 42 yards on three receptions.For the second time in as many games, Kramich returned a kickoff for a touchdown, this one a 76-yard beauty that put the Pioneers up 20-12 just 11 seconds into the second quarter.Trailing 42-28 with 1:28 left in the game, the Pioneers made it interesting when junior quarterback Dan Sullivan connected with Knee on a perfectly executed route into the corner of the end zone. Knee’s second touchdown catch of the day made it it 42-35. The Pioneers were unable to pull off an onside kick on the ensuing kickoff and all the Hornets needed to do was sit on the ball and take a knee.”It was very successful season. Obviously no one wants to go out with a loss, but this team won nine games and considering we really didn’t know what to expect at the beginning of the season, to win nine games, which is the second most in Lynnfield history, is an accomplishment,” Weidman said.”We knew what North Reading’s game plan would be,” he said. “They used the same plan last year and every year we play them. Th