DANVERS — The suspense will end Saturday. That’s when Lynn native Joenel Aguero will reveal his choice of college for next year.
Aguero will announce his verbal commitment at a noon news conference at St. John’s Prep, where he will play during his senior season. He is currently ranked a consensus four-star prospect, according to St. John’s, and is the consensus No. 1 recruit in the state.
The 6-foot, 205-pound safety, who grew up in Lynn but now lives in Lynnfield, is ranked No. 21 overall by ESPN and No. 20 by 24/7 Sports Rivals.com. Both are unanimous in rating him as a national Top 5 recruit as a safety.
Aguero grew up in Lynn, played for East Lynn Pop Warner for coaches Duke Wilson and Darrell Murkison, among others. He went to middle school in Lynnfield before playing his freshman year at St. John’s, where he helped the Eagles defend their Division 1 Super Bowl title with a win over Catholic Memorial.
However, the following season, with the COVID pandemic putting high school football on hold, Aguero went to Florida to attend IMG Academy — a school whose clientele consists mainly of high-level high school athletes.
“I went down there because it was a good opportunity to help me understand the game better,” he said, “and to prepare me for college.”
He stayed in Florida for two years before returning home to play his senior season at St. John’s. One of the reasons he came back, he said, was that he missed playing in front of his friends and family and wanted them to see him before he went off to college.
“I feel like family’s everything,” Aguero said. “I’ll be graduating in December to get early enrollment in college, so I want to spend some time up here before I go wherever I go.”
He has narrowed his choices down to four Division 1A colleges: Georgia, Ohio State, Florida and Miami.
Aguero was 10, he thinks, when he first discovered he liked to play football.
“I liked the physicality of it,” he said. “I always liked the game, and the fact that I was good at it made it better.”
As he prepares to make his college decision, he does so with the knowledge that he is highly regarded.
“I’ve got somewhere near 50 scholarship offers,” he said. Among them, besides Georgia, are offers from Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, and almost every school in the country.
“I’ve heard I’m the best safety in the country,” he said. “That’s why I made the move to IMG, so people could see I can play in a different state, and not just in Massachusetts.”
St. John’s won Super Bowls in 2018 and again in 2019, both against Catholic Memorial. Its coach, Brian St. Pierre, was a standout quarterback both at St. John’s and Boston College, and was on the Arizona Cardinals Super Bowl team of 2008.
