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Friday’s the night for the Division 2 state semifinal showdown between Winchester’s high-powered offense and top-seeded Catholic Memorial (7-2) at Medford’s Hormel Stadium, starting at 6 p.m., with the winner going to Gillette Stadium next month to play in the Super Bowl.
Bridgewater-Raynham (7-3, third seed) is scheduled to go up against Bishop Feehan (9-1, second seed) in the other state semifinal game in Mansfield at the same time.
The Red & Black (10-0, fourth seed) defeated Lincoln-Sudbury (8-2, fifth seed) last Friday night at Knowlton Stadium, 38-21 to advance to tonight’s (Nov. 21) aforementioned next big game in Medford. The Knights will have to find a way to contain an offense that continues to rollover the opposition to the tune of 422-111 after 10 games.
Besides another offensive assault, Coach Wally Dembowski was also impressed by his team’s ability to matchup with the Warriors one-on-one.
“I was pleasantly surprised at our physical play versus a bigger Lincoln-Sudbury team,” Dembowski said. “We really executed well on both sides of the football.”
The veteran coach also liked the way the offense controlled the flow of the game against a quality opponent.
“We continued to run the ball well, while also making some timely catches,” he said. “(Lincoln-Sudbury) played physically along both lines, but we still managed things smoothly.”
Captain Gianni DePrimeo (20 carries, 192 yards) was the offensive leader once again with three rushing touchdowns. Ryan Martin caught one touchdown pass for 43 yards from quarterback Ronan O’Connell.
On the defensive side of the ball, noseguard Lucas Sekino was credited with two solo tackles, and helped out on three others.
But it was the captain, Bryan Harrison, who stood out once again at linebacker with eight solo hits to go along with one assisted stop and another one for a loss. Junior Will Bolognese factored significantly on defense with five solos, two assisted tackles and another one for a loss. He also caused a fumble. Senior Quinn Pimentel amassed seven tackles, two for losses.
Dembowski said that DePrimeo was the offensive star of the game with help from his linemen, while Pimentel played his best game of the year at linebacker.
Dembowski’s take on CM
The coach knows that Catholic Memorial will be a formidable foe, and if they get by them to continue on to the Super Bowl, they would have earned it.
“Catholic Memorial will be our biggest challenge to date,” he said. “They are big on both sides of the ball, and have very good speed at the skill positions. They are also very athletic at quarterback. Their two losses this year were against St. John’s Prep and Xaverian, the top two teams in the state. We’re going to need to fly to the ball and tackle well, contain their athletic quarterback and be disciplined in our defensive assignments. We will also need to handle their physical man-to-man defense. They have a very good group of linebackers against the run, and their defensive backs are also good in coverage.”
But the Winchester coach does like the venue, because of its proximity.
“Playing in Medford is a plus travel-wise, and with that said, we can hopefully get a bunch more fans there (to Hormel Stadium) to cheer us on,” he said.
Joe McConnell is a longtime, award-winning sports editor for numerous North Shore publications. He began covering Winchester sports for the News last November.
