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Ouellette goes to air in Central win

Friday, October, 16 By Dave Dyer
Staff writer

LOWELL — Lowell did a good job scouting for last night’s Merrimack Valley Conference matchup with Central Catholic.

However, Central did a better job of adjusting, the result being a 21-0 shutout for the Raiders (5-1), who won their fifth straight game.

Lowell puts its focus on stopping the running game of Central quarterback Andrew Ouellette and his backfield mates and, except for two Ouellette runs and a few bursts from Zack Lattrell (10-56), the strategy worked well.

So Ouellette turned to the past, especially in the second half, with impressive results, completing 8 of 12 passes for 170 yards and two touchdowns.

“We knew they were going to stack the line and dare us to pass,” said Ouellette. “So we were ready for it.”

Impressively, Ouellette completed passes to six different receivers with all sorts of different types of passes.

The only score in the first half came three plays after the lone long run, a 60-yard dash by Ouellette through the line, when Ouellette lofted a high flare pass into the corner of the end zone that Chris Berganti turned, jumped and caught to complete a 15-yard scoring strike.

In the second half, a beautiful fly pattern down the sideline to Dylan Smith resulted in a 54-yard strike that set up an 11-yard TD pass to Ryan Sullivan making it 14-0 on the first play of the fourth quarter.

A slant pass and a nice 40-yard down-and-out route run by Jaycob Morales set up the final score, a 12-yard keeper play by Ouellette with 2:26 left in the game.

“Andrew did a really nice job throwing the ball, and I think it helps that he’s such a threat to run the ball,” said Central coach Chuck Adamopoulos. “That really opens things up."

Three scores were more than enough for a Central defense that hurled its first shutout of the season, held Lowell to 40 yards of offense in the first half, recovered a fumble and got an interception from Zach Bardwell.
Zac Borrelli and Lattrell (12 tackles) were immense from their linebacking spots and Pat Rooney, Pat Driscoll and Cal Beneze applied plenty of pressure up front.

“The defense played really well and we continue to get turnovers, which really helps,” said Adamopoulos. “We had two many penalties (including five procedure penalties), but it was a good win.”