Sports 09-03-2014

The Revere High football team continued to display positive signs in a pair of pre-season scrimmages last week against St. Mary’s of Lynn and Marblehead.

“Things are going very well,” said RHS head coach Lou Cicatelli. “We’ve had a great pre-season and the coaches are very happy with the progress and work ethic of the team.”

In Saturday’s encounter with Marblehead, which is expected to be one of the top teams in the Northeastern Conference this season, the Patriots scored a pair of touchdowns on a 50 yard scamper by junior captain and quarterback Danny Murphy and a 30 yard pass on a slant play from Murphy to senior captain Kaleb Silva. In addition to their touchdowns, both Murphy and Silva rushed for more than 100 yards apiece.

“We’ve been doing a lot of things well offensively,” said Cicatelli. “We’ve been moving the chains and showing that we can move the ball both with the run and the pass.”

On the defensive side of the ball, the Patriots have played well at times, but need to become more consistent, said the coach. “We have some things to work on, but we feel confident that we’ll be able to straighten them out by the time of our season-opener,” said Cicatelli, who noted the fine play Saturday of junior outside linebacker Steve Noel and freshman cornerback Luca Barbosa. Marblehead scored three touchdowns in the scrimmage, including a late  TD that broke a 14-14 deadlock.

RHS football team does well in scrimmages

The Patriots were without the services of a trio of starters, junior lineman Martin Keuchkerian, junior captain Brandon Britto, and Mike Norton, for the contest . All three are expected to be back in action this week as the Patriots prepare for their season-opener next Friday evening, September 12, at Medford.

“Injuries always are a key factor at any level of football,” said Cicatelli. “But they’re a part of the game. We just have to hope for the best and that we’ll be healthy when we start the season.”

The Patriots will be playing in a division of the Northeastern Conference that includes Peabody, Salem, Lynn Classical, Winthrop, and Danvers, an alignment that was constituted based upon those teams’  records over the past two seasons. As was the case last year, the top team (or teams) from that division will qualify for the playoffs with a shot at a Super Bowl bid. The non-playoff teams will play against other non-playoff teams from the area.

Revere will open the season with a pair of non-league contests against former Greater Boston League rivals Medford and Malden before embarking on their league schedule. They then will play three more games after that before the annual Turkey Day contest with Winthrop — which means that as happened last year, Revere will play Winthrop twice. Patriot fans will recall that although Revere lost the first encounter early in the year, Cicatelli’s crew came back to win the rematch contest on Thanksgiving Day.

As was noted in last week’s Journal, all of the Patriots’ games this season will be on the road because of the ongoing renovation project at Harry Della Russo Stadium.

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