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Tewksbury bullies Lawrence

Friday, October, 04 By By Bill Burt
Sports editor

LAWRENCE — It was a night of big plays. And Lawrence High was on the wrong of end of almost every one of them.

The Lancers, 0-4, were drubbed last night by possibly the best team in the Merrimack Valley Conference, Tewksbury High, 49-14, at Veterans Memorial Stadium last night.

The fact that Tewksbury, now 4-0, and its stable of running backs, gashed their way to 280 yards and four touchdown runs while talented senior quarterback Johnny Aylward threw three touchdown passes was not a surprise. The fact that two of those runs were for 78 and 61 yards, and that two of the TD passes were on 4th-and-long was.

"I know it sounds crazy to look at a score like 49-14 and say we could have won the game," said Lawrence High coach Mike Yameen. "But we gave up so many big plays, fourth down conversions from 15 and 17 yards out, for touchdowns, is ridiculous. How many long third down conversions did we give up? How many drops did we have? You can't do that in a game like this."

Tewksbury took advantage of Lawrence's early miscues for a 28-0 lead before talented Lawrence High QB Nelson Valerio threw a perfect slant pass to Justin Rivera who eventually took it 23 yards for the score to close it to 28-7. 

While Tewksbury fell into a lull for about 10 minutes of play after that, the Redmen regrouped and added three more scores before Lawrence put up a late score, set up by a beautiful pass in the slot to sophomre Kenny Richards, who went 56 yards. 

"We had a few bright spots, but I'm more concerned about where we go from here," said Yameen. "You either like football, or you love football. If you love football, we can improve and not let this get us down. We have North Andover next week. We need to decide if we want to get better. If we do, we have a chance."

Valerio was Lawrence's brightest light, completing 12 of 26 passes (there were seven drops!) for 186 yards and two TDs.