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It’s a two week stretch that the Winchester High School football team (3-2) would soon rather forget. But in reality, it’s better to learn from it and move on to the next game, which is scheduled for Friday night, Oct. 16, against visiting Arlington at Knowlton Stadium, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Reading, the team that beat the Red & Black Oct. 9 rather handily, 55-7, has the same record as them, while Melrose, Winchester’s previous opponent, surprised them with a 35-21 victory.
The Red Hawks are currently 4-1, and are the third seed in the MIAA Division 3 power rankings, as of Oct. 13. The Rockets are the eighth seed in that same division.
But despite losing to both league rivals, the Winchester boys are still among the Top 16 in Division 2. They are the 13th seed, and have three more regular season games left before the playoffs get underway.
In other words, there’s still time to recover from these midseason setbacks and move further up in the rankings.
Winchester Coach Wally Dembowski understands these losses can happen throughout the course of a season.
“Everything that could go wrong in a football game did last Friday night,” Dembowski said. “We just didn't execute very well on either side of the ball. We had mental and physical errors, and got behind Reading from the get-go. (As a result), we lost our energy early.”
Dembowski has a lot of respect for Reading, a program that’s perennially in playoff contention.
“Reading is a solid team with physical linemen and strong, athletically skilled players,” the coach said.
But after that blowout loss, it was time to get back to the drawing board, and Dembowski has liked what he has seen in practice leading up to Friday night’s home game against Arlington (2-3, 23rd seed in Division 1).
“(Our) practice energy has picked up,” he said. “The tempo, physicality and focus has been better. We have no glaring injuries to speak of other than the usual bumps and bruises that any team gets this time of year after going up against two physical teams like Melrose and Reading.”
Spy Ponders report
Dembowski says Arlington has a very aggressive defense with the traditional four down linemen and three linebackers. As a defensive unit, they employ a lot of man-to-man coverage.
Offensively, quarterback Joey Schiano, last year’s Middlesex League all-star, is athletic, and his linemen are big and physical. They run a one-back offense with multiple looks. Their passing game varies from week to week, but they like to throw the screen.
“We’ll have our hands-full with assignments trying to stop them offensively,” said the Winchester coach.
But sometimes, regular season losses are good wakeup calls for teams, and after a week of focused practices the Winchester boys appear to be more determined than ever to get back into the win column to resume their quest for the postseason.
Joe McConnell is a longtime, award-winning sports editor for numerous North Shore publications. He has been covering Winchester sports for the News since November 2024 and is currently its Sports Editor. He can be reached at editor@winchesternews.org.
