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Winchester High School football Head Coach Wally Dembowki is beginning his 15th year along the Red &Black sidelines, and is already hard at work to ensure another winning season.
The grind for him started on Aug. 15, the first official day of practice, to get this year’s squad ready for what lies ahead on the schedule in the Middlesex League and hopefully, beyond in Division 2 once the playoffs get underway.
Last year, the Winchester boys were the sixth seed going into the playoffs after accumulating a 6-2 record. They then defeated Peabody (4-5), the 11th seed, in the Round of 16, 35-27. But Marshfield (9-2, third seed), eliminated them from the postseason the following week in the Elite 8, 48-28.
However, they rebounded nicely to beat Thanksgiving rival Woburn, 35-28 to end the season on a successful note with an overall 8-3 record.
But the page has now been turned to a brand-new season, where hope springs eternal for all high school football teams in the state, and so far, Dembowski likes what he sees with his team.
“Practices have been good with some energy,” he told the Winchester News earlier this week. “The kids are working hard, and are all healthy. We have been practicing daily, and had a joint practice against Lynn English last Saturday (Aug. 23). We were able to get some Red Zone work in, along with some two-minute drills.”
The Red & Black were scheduled to go up against Lynn Classical in another joint practice on Tuesday, Aug. 26, before scrimmaging Stoneham two nights later at home on Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. They will travel to Billerica to take on the host Indians to close the exhibition slate on Sept. 4 at 6 p.m.
“The scrimmages and joint practices provide us with the opportunity to find out the correct working pieces at each position, while continuing to see who will be on the second and third teams, and who will be our main special team players moving forward,” said Dembowski. “It’s never about winning or losing right now; it's only about development.”
Dembowski welcomed close to 60 players from freshmen to seniors to the first day of practice on Aug. 15.
Linebacker Bryan Harrison, tight end/defensive lineman Mike Ficociello, running back/defensive back Gianni DePrimeo and offensive and defensive lineman Lucas Sekino are this year’s captains.
Altogether, there are 22 seniors, 17 juniors and 11 sophomores, who will dot the varsity roster this fall.
Dembowski plans on installing the prospective offensive and defensive starting lineups, not to mention the special teams this week.
“We have already tested all the players in the weight room, and also ran them through conditioning and sprint workouts to get them ready for this week,” the coach said.
The expectations are always the same for the team from year to year, and that’s to have a winning record, compete for the league title and go deeper than the quarterfinals in the playoffs.
“We’ve lost the league title the past two years by a total of just seven points,” said Dembowski.
Belmont escaped with a 15-9 triumph in 2023 to secure the league title over Dembowski’s crew. Last year in Reading, the Rockets pinned a 29-28 heartbreaker on them. King Phillip in 2023 and Marshfield last year then knocked them out of the playoffs in the quarterfinals. They hope to reverse that trend this fall.
Quarterbacks Ronan O’Connell, a senior, and Peter Alexopoulos, a junior; wide receiver and defensive back Ted Budreski, a Georgetown commit for lacrosse; wide receiver and strong safety Ryan Martin, a soon-to-be college lacrosse commit; Harrison, a three-year starter and Harvard commit as a linebacker; Ficociello, a Bates College commit; and Deprimeo, a Navy Prep lacrosse commit, are among some of the notables who will be counted on this year. Shaun Garrett and Sekino are also key starters, who are back from last year’s team.
The coaching staff will be looking for strong safety and running back Nick Rotondi, and linebackers Quinn Pimentel and Will Mango, all of them seniors, to step up this year among others to help lighten the load on the varsity starters.
But there are still a couple of more weeks left to iron everything out, before the regular season gets underway at home against Peabody on Friday night, Sept. 12, at 6:30 p.m.
