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Central wraps up perfect Fall 2 season

Friday, April, 23 By Jeff Hamrick

LOWELL – A once-in-a-lifetime Fall 2 football season ended Friday night for Central Catholic much like it had been forecast as the Raiders emerged from prohibitive favorites into the indisputable Merrimack Valley Conference champions.

While the margin of victory in the MVC Cup Championship was its smallest of the season, Central convincingly ran off the first 30 points before leaving Cawley Stadium with a 30-14 win over Tewksbury.

“It would have been a nice group to have played a (complete) regular season, but we got seven games in and we played the whole league schedule out,” Central coach Chuck Adamopoulos said. “And we got to play this crossover championship which is cool against a really great program in Tewksbury. Brian (Aylward) and I came in together as head coaches in the same year (1997), so it was an honor to play against them.”

Unfortunately, there is no chance of Central taking those regional laurels statewide with this uniquely autumn/spring campaign wrapping up minus postseason play.

“I would have like to have played a full season,” quarterback Ayden Pereira said. “That’s the one thing about the fall I miss is playing a full season. Having a chance to play for a state championship would have been awesome.”

The junior quarterback and his offensive cohorts once again were pretty awesome on Friday.

The Raiders had four possessions in the first half that lasted a combined 3:19. But despite running only 13 plays, all four found paydirt.

The longest of the possessions was the first, which needed six plays, five of them producing first downs. A perfectly lofted 19-yard pass from Pereira found senior receiver Mark Ciccarelli in the back corner of the end zone.

The next drive needed only four plays as senior Jackson Burns burned through the final 46 yards for a 14-0 lead after Nick Mazzie’s kick.

Tewksbury, however, looked to get back into the match after another Mazzie kickoff resulted in a touchback. With their 10-minute drive, the 5-2 Redmen came close to scoring the first first-half touchdown of the season against the Raiders with a first-and-goal at the 5. Three plays later Tewksbury was at the 2 when Preston Zinter chased quarterback Ryne Rametta into a strip-sack loss of 27 yards. Sophomore defensive tackle Jaden Wiggins scooped up the loose ball and didn’t stop until he was in the end zone on a return that unfortunately was negated by a block in the back.

“That goal line stand was huge,” Adamopoulos said. “If they make it 14-7 there, who knows because it’s a different game. One thing we’ve done all year defensively is we haven’t given up any big plays. We make teams go the field, and in high school football that isn’t easy to do. We hung in and we stopped them in the end.”

Pereira and Zinter then hooked up for 19 yards and Central’s third score with 1:34 left in the half with 6-foot-3 Zinter hugging the side of the end zone and outreaching the defensive back.

Central capped the opening half when a 46-yard punt return by Ciccarelli set the Raiders up at the Tewksbury 1, from where Matthias Latham made the score 27-0 with 35 seconds left.

Mazzie added his fifth field goal of the year from 24 yards early in the third for the Raiders final points of the season during which Central outscored its seven opponents 246-46, including 172-0 in the first half.

“They were a really good group of kids, and they worked hard,” Adamopoulos said. “Most of them, this was their last game tonight. These seniors worked hard and did whatever we asked them to do. They plugged along and were very coachable kids.

“What was good was all our seniors got to play a lot in these games. That was a good thing. Our (backup) seniors are our scout team guys and they get the starters ready. They got to play a lot this year and that’s a good thing.”

And while the seven-week dash of a season was unique and short, it only mattered that the games were played.

“It felt so great that we got a chance to play,” Ciccarelli said. “Everyone was going crazy with no football in the fall. We just feel blessed as a team, and everyone came together as one. We really played well this season.”