PEABODY — It didn’t take very long for the Fenwick football team to show the returning members of the Stoneham 2018 Super Bowl winners that it is a brand new season. The Crusaders pummeled the Spartans Friday night, 35-14.
Fenwick went up 14-0 after two possessions and led by seven at the half.
Spartans coach Dave Almeida said it really wasn’t a seven-point game at the break.
“They blasted us, that’s a great football team over there, a lot of very good players on that team, they took us out right away, we only stopped them once in the first half, it was 14-7, but it really wasn’t a 14-7 game,” Almeida said. “That’s a great team they have, really the class of Division 6.”
Fenwick got the ball the first time with 9:42 left in the first quarter, and three minutes later David Cifuentes was in the end zone for the first time, putting Fenwick on top to stay with 6:48 left in the opening quarter. Cifuentes, a senior running back, scored three touchdowns and kicked five PAT’s for a 23-point game. He carried the ball 11 times for 110 yards.
Stefano Fabiano picked off a Stoneham pass with just over two minutes remaining in the first quarter, and five plays later Joe Rivers made it 14-0, blasting in from the 10, with just six seconds gone in the second. The Crusaders forced a punt and a turnover after five Spartan offensive plays.
Stoneham got on the board on a Chris Dragone run with four minutes left in the half, but that was as close as the Spartans would get. Fenwick outscored Stoneham 21-7 in the second half, never letting the visitors get a sniff of the end zone until James Scally ran one in with 1:26 left on the clock, accounting for the final 35-14 score.
Cifuentes scored twice in the second half, from 16 yards out and from the two-yard line on the first play of the fourth quarter. Angel Martinez took a Spartan punt with 4:08 remaining in the game, and it took him just nine seconds to cover 64 yards for the fifth and final touchdown by the Crusaders.
Fenwick coach Dave Woods said it was a good way to start the season, but it’s just one game.
“Our offense really wasn’t clicking, but we have a lot of talented kids and we were able to improvise and get it done,” Woods said. “We need to stick to the game plan and make things easy on ourselves, but that being said, the kids played great.”
Fenwick (1-0) travels to Hamilton-Wenham next Saturday (1).
