LYNNFIELD — There were high hopes for Lynnfield’s football team as they returned to Bishop Fenwick to play in the Northeast 7v7 New England Championship. In the end, Milton beat Denham 19-7 to come out on top, but the Lynnfield boys rallied until the end.
The team took on Dexter Southfield first, winning the game 7-0, thanks to Joey Cucciniello.
“That was really nice. In terms of bounce back right off the bat, they turned the ball over to the defense, then we were still able to get a stop and then hold the rest,” said Lynnfield Head Coach Pat Lamusta. “Obviously, the defense really stepped up and got the job done at the first game.”
Next to face Lynnfield was Billerica. It was a back and forth battle with what looked like Lynnfield to squeak out with the win. It turned out that the scoring was wrong for Billerica. The score was a tie, 20-20, which sent them into overtime. Cucciniello, Kevin Julian, James Sharkey, and Robert Marley all scored touchdowns for the team during the game. While Charlie Capachietti scored in overtime, their two-point conversion was blocked, allowing Billerica to take the win.
“They had to check the score because there was a debate on whether Billerica went for one or two. I initially thought that we had won by one, but there was a screw-up on the score, so it was a tie, and the next thing you know, we’re in overtime. You both get possessions, and you get two downs to score. Then you get an option to go for one or two, and then the other team gets a shot. If you match again, you repeat, but the other team gets the ball first,” said Lamusta. “That’s how we want to compete against these bigger schools. I’m proud of how they battled in that and went to the last overtime play. I hope for the rest of the tournament. I hope we can kind of take this momentum from that even though it didn’t go our way. The game against Billerica shows that we can hang with the big schools.”
The third game was against Barnstable, who took the win 12-7. Kyle Schmitz started the game with a 20-yard catch. Followed by Jack Calichman, who made the team’s only touchdown.
Game four was against BB&N, where the Lynnfield boys took the 18-12 win. “The BB&N win was huge. They always do very well in 7v7 and the regular season. It’s a private school so to compete against them and win, that’s a lot,” said Lamusta.
BB&N took the lead first, but Calichman was there to tie the score 6-6. BB&N took the lead again, but this time, Schmitz tied the game back at 12-12. Capachietti made an impressive jumping catch in the endzone that even made Barnstable jump from its tent and onto the sidelines. Capachietti’s catch brought Lynnfield ahead of BB&N to take the 18-12 win.
“That’s our team this year. They are competitive athletic players at all positions, so it’s just very exciting. There are position battles all over the place, so in a sense, there’s no set job. They all know they have to work hard this pre-season and then just get a glimpse of it at the 7v7, but there’s a lot of kids that can play juniors, seniors, and sophomores,” said Lamusta. “They’re happy because I think it gave them a shot (at the finals), but no one knows what’s going to happen. I mean, probably going to have a bunch of teams with two wins, and the Tournament Director Steve Dembowski he’s going to have to crunch some numbers and figure out how this is going to work, so we’ll see.”
After watching the final games play out and having a talk with the director, the boys huddled together. When they broke and returned to the tent, they yelled, “We’re heading home.” The team ended up not advancing to the semifinals but they still put up a fight.
Maddi Filip can be reached at [email protected].
