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Hornets come alive after poor start

Monday, September, 17 By Nick Curcuru
Correspondent

Saturday night’s contest between the Manchester Essex and Lynnfield football teams was a tale of two games.

The Hornets had struggled to mount any offense for the first 40 minutes and found themselves trailing Lynnfield 14-0, with just four minutes to go in the game. It looked as if the Pioneers were going to cruise to a shutout victory.

But Pat Orlando and Sam Cohen had other ideas. The quarterback and the split end connected four times for 97 yards and two touchdowns in the final four minutes to tie up the game and send it into overtime. The second touchdown came with 55 seconds left in regulation.

In overtime Manchester Essex got a 1-yard touchdown run from Brian Ciccone to give the Hornets the lead, then forced and recovered a fumble to seal a 21-14 win at Gloucester’s Newell Stadium.

The Hornets (2-0) will now host Minuteman on Saturday at Endicott College (4 p.m.).

“We played four minutes of a football game,” Manchester Essex head coach Mike Athanas said. “We came out flat and didn’t execute and Lynnfield played a tough game. Fortunately we were able to put some drives together at the end of the game and we made it happen.”

Orlando believes that his team’s perseverance helped lead to the Hornets victory.

“We never gave up,” Orlando said. “We just started to make some plays and stuck together as a team.”

Lynnfield (0-2) got on the board in the first quarter when Alex Mastrangelo caught a 4-yard pass from quarterback Chris Grassi to make it 7-0.

The Pioneer defense dominated the rest of the half, holding the Hornets to 141 yards of total offense. Lynnfield stopped the only drive Manchester Essex could put together by recovering a fumble in the end zone.

Lynnfield’s defense was led by its defensive line consisting of Matt Vargo, Eric Inglese and Nick Tropeano. The trio combined for four first half sacks.

“We had a lot of trouble with their defensive line in the first half,” Athanas said. “They made a ton of plays.”

The second half started off a lot like the first, with the Pioneers moving the ball on the ground while shutting down the Hornets’ offense.

Manchester Essex appeared to grab momentum in the third quarter when Orlando forced a fumble that the Hornets recovered inside their own 10-yard line. However, the momentum was short-lived, as the Hornets proceeded to go three and out. The Pioneers would then block the punt and Tropeano would recover in the end zone to put Lynnfield up 14-0.

The Hornets next two possessions would end in a turnover on downs and a fumble. But the Manchester Essex defense stepped up and stopped Lynnfield to set the stage for Orlando and Cohen.

Orlando finished the game with 213 yards and two touchdowns, completing 10 of 18 passes. Cohen had seven catches for 176 yards. Grassi led the Pioneers offense with 80 yards rushing on 25 carries, he also threw for 61 yards and a touchdown.

Despite being disappointed in his team’s play for most of the game, Athanas was happy to get the win and felt that his the Hornets showed a lot of character.

“This win shows that we will not quit,” Athanas said. “We have learned how to win the close ones in the end.”

Although it’s early in the season, the Hornets have got used to winning nail biters. Last week they defeated Pope John in a 27-26 thriller that came down to the final minute of the game.

“We always go hard until the very end,” Orlando said. “We know that if we keep playing hard and doing our best that we will be successful.”