MEDFORD — The Lynn Classical football team put on an offensive clinic Friday evening, executing a picture-perfect offense en route to a 52-8 victory over Medford at Hormel Stadium. Senior quarterback Keith Ridley completed 11 of 14 passes for 248 yards and 4 touchdowns.
“It was a great way to start the season, the guys played well on both sides of the ball,” said Classical coach Brian Vaughan. “We took advantage of a busted coverage early for a big play, and then everything kind of fell into place from there.”
Ridley’s main beneficiary in the passing game was senior receiver Nashaun Butler, who had five catches for 166 yards and three touchdowns, including a 93-yard touchdown catch on the second offensive play of the game. Senior running back Marcus Tucker had 67 total yards and a touchdown, senior receiver Dyrrell Rucker had 43 receiving yards and a touchdown, senior Malcolm Best had 37 rush yards and a touchdown and sophomore Nico Galeazzi had 15 rush yards and a touchdown.
“Our goal’s to spread the ball around,” said Vaughan. “We say it all the time, there’s not enough balls to spread the ball around to all of our guys, and that’s a good problem to have. When we can make it all work, we get a performance like we had tonight.”
The Rams jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. After weathering a 10-play drive and forcing a Medford punt , Classical took over on its own seven yard line. Ridley opened the game with a quick pass attempt, but missed. Then, on the very next play, Butler split through a hole in the Medford coverage and Ridley found him deep for a 93-yard touchdown to jumpstart the game.
It didn’t take much longer for the Rams to score on their next drive, as it only took five plays for Tucker to take a handoff and break through a hole for an 18-yard touchdown run, making it 16-0.
Classical recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, then the Rams took two plays for Ridley to throw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Rucker. After Classical punched in another touchdown on a 10-yard run by Best, the Rams took a 31-0 lead into halftime.
Ridley opened second half with a 20-yard completion. After two modest runs by Best, Ridley dropped back and fired a 33-yard strike to Butler for another touchdown. The next series was even quicker, as Ridley hit Butler with a 34-yard touchdown on just the second play of that drive to make it 45-0 and end the night for the Classical starters.
The Rams scored one more time late in the third quarter, when Galeazzi took a handoff on second-and-five and ran it in for a 15-yard touchdown.
The lone Medford score came with just 18 seconds left in the game, when sophomore Jake Fedoce ran one in to avoid the shutout.
Next up for Classical is a matchup with Malden. Vaughan knows that his team needs to keep working if it wants to keep up this level of play.
“We just have to stay consistent with what we’re doing in practice,” Vaughan said. “However we played today, we just want to be better the next game. So we’ll evaluate the film tomorrow and see where we can get better.”
