MARBLEHEAD — There are new faces and names on the newly renovated SSG Christopher N. Piper Field as the Marblehead football team prepares for another season. Head coach Jim Rudloff has been spearheading the Magicians team since 2009 and he’s ready for another season of football.
“We just got our new turf field put in. They replaced it with a new one after 10 years with the old field. It’s been nice. We’ve been practicing at six o’clock in the morning. We go and do meetings, practice, and everything else. It’s difficult to tell where we are but the kids are responding well,” Rudloff said.
Rudloff said he’ll get a better feel of where the kids are once the pads come on and they can start tackling on Wednesday. But even with the pads, Rudloff admitted this year’s schedule is tough on paper.
“Wins and loss wise, it’s going to depend on our schedule. We have a loaded schedule this year so we’re going to be up against it. We travel to Wrentham to face King Philip, which is a Division 2 powerhouse. We played them last year and got annihilated,” Rudloff said. “We’re playing North Andover which is another Division 2 team, we face Peabody too. We have some tough teams we’re facing this season. We have a long way to go, but I like what I’ve seen so far.”
According to Rudloff, the Magicians graduated 18 seniors from last season’s team where the majority of them were starters. This year, however, the senior class is made up of over half of the team.
“We have 27 seniors which is a huge number. We only have 52 players on the team so it’s a huge senior class. Some of the kids joined recently, but most of them have been with us for all four years. Finding those guys a way to get on the field, the older bigger bodies will be guys who I’m looking forward to contributing to,” Rudloff said.
Last year, Marblehead started the season 0-4 before finishing the regular season with a 3-4 record and a postseason win over No. 3 ranked Middleborough.
“They have the experience of having that happen [starting season 0-4]. Knowing the feeling of what it’s like to be down like that, but knowing how to come out of it. Hopefully, they learned they don’t want to be put in that position again. We need to change how we prepare and our focus to make sure we don’t get off to a start like that,” Rudloff said. “God forbid we have a similar start to last year, at least we know how we can dig ourselves out of it”
This year, the Magicians will start the season with back-to-back road games starting with Bishop Fenwick on September 6, followed by a trip to King Philip on September 13. Luckily, for Marblehead, they schedule a scrimmage against Springfield to prepare them for what a long travel day will look like.
“Two of our scrimmages, our first and our last are home, but we do have a road scrimmage out in Springfield. The idea is to get our guys ready to go on the road trip before we do the King Philip and Bishop Fenwick road trips. Trying to get a travel day before we have an away game is important for the kids to learn,” Rudloff said. “They can learn the preparation, the timing, how long it takes, and how they need to be ready as soon as they get off the bus. You can try to schedule something like that and we’re fortunate enough to be able to get this game in. It might be a pain to our athletic department, but for the team, it should pay off.”
Rudloff announced that his captains are Colt Wales, Bodie Smith, Justin Gonzalez, Brady Selvais, and Crew Monaco.
Marblehead’s regular season schedule:
9/6 7 p.m. @ Bishop Fenwick
9/13 7 p.m. @ King Philip
9/20 7 p.m. vs. Shepherd Hill
9/27 6 p.m. @ North Andover
10/10 7 p.m. vs. Beverly
10/18 7 p.m. vs. Peabody
10/25 7 p.m. vs. Masconomet
11/1 6:30 p.m. @ Danvers
11/28 10 a.m. vs. Swampscott
