LYNN — Zack Ryan paid tribute to his father the only way he knew how. He and his Swampscott High football teammates beat Lynn English Friday evening.
“I wanted to win for him,” said an emotional Ryan, whose father, Mark, a Swampscott fire captain, died Monday after a 4 ½-year battle with cancer. “We played to win. And we did.”
The two-time defending Division 4 Super Bowl champions won their first game of the year, defeating English, 27-6, with quarterback Ryan connecting for 12 of 17 passes, two for touchdowns ( plus one rushing score), for 115 yards. Senior running back Jason Codispoti ran for 116 yards on 19 carries, rushing for a touchdown.
Ryan was grateful for the support his teammates have shown since his father’s death, especially Friday night.
“It means the world to me,” he said. “This support system is tremendous.
“Everybody stepped up,” he said. “And coming into this game, we knew we had to.”
Swampscott coach Bobby Serino said the key to making sure the Big Blue didn’t get too emotionally high Friday was keeping things simple.
\”We talked simple,” Serino said, “We simplified everything. (Zack) needed something to focus on, and that’s what we gave him.”
\ English (0-2) and Swampscott (1-1) traded on long drives that netted nothing on the scoreboard through most of the first quarter. But after the Big Blue’s Liam Keaney recovered an English fumble, Ryan found Elijah Burns for a 23-yard scoring pass with 2:15 to go in the quarter. The kick failed, but Swampscott led, 6-0.
\Swampscott made it 13-0 on its first drive of the second quarter. This time it was Ryan taking it in on a five-yard keeper on the fifth play of the drive. That’s how it stayed until the third quarter. Again on its first drive of the period, Ryan went to work, completing passes of 132 and 23 yards before finding Nakeylen Davis from four yards out midway through the quarter to make it 20-0.
English, which had a tough time getting anything going for most of the night, finally broke through after recovering a fumble from the Big Blue 26; on the first play, quarterback Dominic Papa connected with Edwin Castro for the score,
“We’re young,” said first-year coach Anthony LaFratta, who, at 30, mirrors the youth of his players. “We have four or five sophomores starters and a lot of juniors.
“But they’re a good bunch of kids who are putting forth the effort.”
LaFratta said the big difference between the Bulldogs and Big Blue is that “they know how to win. They’ve established their program, and I have a lot of respect for what they’ve accomplished. How could you not? Now, we’re building our program.
“After a game like this, we will tell them to stay the course,” he said. “It’s frustrating, but they’re getting better with each practice. We will improve.”
Codispoti, a senior, scored the final touchdown of the game on a 17-yard rush late in the fourth quarter.
The winner of the Swampscott-English game gets to take home the Jeff Blydell Cup, named for the coach who had a history at both schools.
