After nearly a month of preparation, local high school football teams will hit the fields on Friday and Saturday to kick off their 2023 campaigns.
Last season, none of the Recorder area teams — Athol, Franklin Tech, Frontier, Greenfield and Mahar — qualified for the MIAA Div. 8 state tournament. Will that change this year?
Plenty of teams are hopeful. Greenfield, the lone Recorder team to qualify for the state tournament (2021) in the two years since the new format was implemented, has a young group that coach Mike Kuchieski said he hopes grows throughout the year. Frontier and Athol are poised to take steps forward after making strides a season ago, Franklin Tech has a large roster that is full of experience and talent while Mahar has energy with new head coach Percy Eady taking over the program.
The format for the season will be the same as last year: each team will play three independent games before contesting their five league games. Athol, Franklin Tech, Greenfield and Mahar will again be joined by Palmer and Ware in the Intercounty League North while Frontier, Hoosac Valley, Lee, Belchertown, Commerce and Easthampton will comprise the IL South.
Let’s start by looking at the Green Wave, which open their season at Vets Field on Friday against Chicopee.
Kuchieski — who was inducted into the Mass. Coaches Association Hall of Fame last year — will be tasked with replacing his starting quarterback and backfield from 2022, with Levin Prondecki, Ryan Pulizari and Joey White all now graduated. Senior Keagan Fisher will get the first crack under center for Greenfield while sophomore Angel Politis will slot in at tailback. Senior Owen LaValley, who was the Green Wave’s starting center last year, has moved to fullback.
Fisher has plenty of weapons to work with on the outside. Ty Griswold, Krish Patel, Petru Cojocaru and Eric Martineau will rotate in at receiver, and Kuchieski said all are athletic and can do the job.
Jon Breor, who was a starting tackle last year, will move over to tight end, where the Green Wave hope he will be able to hold the edge on the run and use his athleticism and size as a receiver.
Will VanVleet and Noah Gamache have been mainstays on the right side of the Greenfield offensive line and will be anchors on that unit.
“We have just two returning starters on offense,” Kuchieski said. “Week one will be a learning experience for a lot of us. It’s a young team. A lot of kids will be playing in positions that they haven’t played at the varsity level. I love these kids and it’s a great bunch. We’ll compete.”
The Green Wave will also be young on defense. Politis, VanVleet and LaValley will lead the linebacker charge, Breor, Cojocaru, Gamche and Elliot Cox will hold down the line while Fisher, Martineau, Patel, Everett Allen and Griswold are players to watch in the secondary.
“The defense will be a work in progress,” Kuchieski said. “[Longtime Greenfield defensive coordinator Al Dean] has them going in the right direction. We got better as our scrimmage went on last week.”
As is usually the case at Greenfield — which finished 6-4 last season — the goal is to make the postseason and compete on a weekly basis.
“Our goal is always to make the playoffs,” Kuchieski said. “We have to take baby steps to get there. We have to have a daily goal of getting better. If we don’t keep getting better we’re not going to be successful. Our goal is to improve every week.”
Frontier coach Scott Dredge noted that there’s been a renewed sense of energy at practice this summer.
With a slew of Intercounty South teams losing chunks of their roster to graduating, and the Redhawks bringing back a good portion of their roster from last year’s team that went 5-4, Dredge said he’s hoping his squad is in the mix to take home a league title. Frontier opens its season on the road on Friday, heading out to Central Mass. to take on Lunenburg.
“We’ve been able to crank up the intensity in practice and have had great energy,” Dredge said. “The kids are buying into what we’re bringing here. There’s new life and they’re excited to be out there. Hopefully we can benefit from that. Our expectation is to be a top contender for our league title and to make the playoffs. It all starts with Lunenburg on Friday.”
Aiden Dredge is back under center for Frontier and is poised for a big senior season leading the offense. Fellow senior Ian Burt is back and was a top weapon both running and catching the ball last season, while junior Kaden James is a player Scott Dredge mentioned as someone who has looked really impressive and will play a “Taysom Hill type role” with the Redhawks.
Twelve of the 27 players on the Frontier roster are upperclassmen. Edward Mieczkowski (FB/LB), Alex Schreiber (C/ILB), Bray Arsenault (RB/OLB), Aiden Weis (WR/CB/K) and Wyatt Edes (OL/DE) round out the senior class while Ben Caron (WR/DB), Collin West (TE/DE), Jacob Rice (C/DT) and Javion Cabrera (OT/DT) make up the remainder of the junior class.
“We still have a young team,” Dredge said. ‘They’re all ready to play ball. Everyone has gotten reps in the preseason and the younger kids will be ready if they’re called upon.”
As a young team last year, Dredge said his side struggled to put together full games which led to tallies in the loss column. He said that with more experience, those mistakes should be minimized this season.
“With game experience we got better and better last year,” the Frontier coach said. “We know that our league has been competitive and we’ll have to compete every week. We won’t have any easy games and that’s a good thing. We can’t take any game lightly. We’re a young team but we have a lot of experience. We have to keep our composure, stick to our game plan and execute it.”
Franklin Tech has the largest roster in the area, as head coach Joe Gamache boasts 68 players at his disposal. Thirty of those players are freshmen, setting the program up for the present and for years to come.
“We have a huge number of kids,” Gamache said. “It’s a fun group. They’re learning. The challenge for us coaches is making sure they stay engaged and they’ve done a good job of that by staying busy and learning. We’ve worked them hard and they’re responding.”
The Eagles, which went 4-7 last season, will be led by senior quarterback Gabe Tomasi on offense. Tomasi, who is entering his third season as the Franklin Tech quarterback, threw for seven touchdowns last season. He’s in line for a strong senior season under center.
Josiah Little recorded his second straight 1,000 yard season last year as a sophomore. Now a junior, Little will once again lead the Tech rushing attack. Ethan Smarr, who led the Eagles in receiving last year, will be a top threat on the outside while Will Ainsworth, Shaun Turner and Cam Candelaria give Tomasi plenty of weapons to work with at the skill spots.
Up front James Pekarski enters the season having been a starter at tackle each of the last three season. Collin Eddy, Dylan Lafountain and Gavin Crossman are a few other players who will make an impact up front.
On defense Landen Hardy is a standout linebacker, Jet Bastarache has been productive on the edge the last few seasons while Tucker Hicks will also factor in on the edge.
“Our upperclassmen have put the work in,” Gamache said. “They’ve been good leaders at practice and have been role models for the younger players. The seniors and juniors with experience are bringing the young players along quickly and showing them what we expect out of them.
“The majority of kids who will be seeing time have been in our system for two, three, four years,” Gamache added. “They’re ready for a change. We want to be more competitive than we have been the last few years and win more games. We want to try to make a run at our league title. We’re hoping we turn the corner a bit.”
Franklin Tech opens its season on the road on Friday, traveling to North Adams to take on McCann Tech.
Athol was ravaged by injuries last season, when it finished 3-7, but now with a clean bill of health, Bears head coach Josh Talbot is hoping to turn things around this fall.
“It’s been promising so far,” Talbot said. “I like what we have. I feel like we’re better prepared for the grind of a football season. We’ve been really intentional in the things we’re working on at practice to build out some of the foundational things that allow us to be successful.”
Athol has 36 players on its roster, all sophomores, juniors and seniors. Aidan Melanson and Dom Curtis will split time at quarterback while Sawyer Lefsyk and Dom Pope will lead the backfield, Lefsyk bringing the power and Pope the speed and elusiveness.
Hayden Barrieau will get some carries but will mostly be used as a receiver, Aaron Ouellet is a jump ball weapon while Anthony Lopez and Raydin Sousa are other pieces that will factor into the offense. Riley Young, Joe Grant and Ryan Romero will lead the line, with Young and Grant missing long stretches last season.
Riley Reed (MLB), Logan McGrath (edge), Nick LeBlanc (LB) are expected to be big pieces on defense for the Bears.
“We have a lot of healthy bodies back,” Talbot said. “A lot of the guys who will be out there on Friday weren’t there last Thanksgiving [a 12-0 loss to Mahar]. We have those guys back and are feeling optimistic. It seemed like we settled in and started to figure stuff out last year but then injuries shut us down. It’s really hard to assess where we left off last year. We’ll find out how much growth we made on Friday.”
Athol opens its season against Murdock on Friday at O’Brien Field, and the Bears are looking to build some early season momentum.
“We want to build something here,” Talbot said. “We want to build a foundation on offense and defense that can last when guys get hurt. Anyone can go down at any time. If you don’t build a strong foundation, when those guys go down you’re left with your hands in the air. We’ve worked to get a lot of guys reps to make sure we can be good across the board. We’ll see how it plays out on Friday.”
New Mahar head coach Percy Eady is focused on building a culture within the Senators program.
That began to take shape last Saturday, when Eady — who came to Mahar after spending the last four seasons coaching at Gardner High School — took the Sens to Chestnut Hill to watch Boston College face off against Northern Illinois. Eady has also put a focus on building things at the middle school level, with 25 players on Mahar’s middle school roster this season.
As for the varsity team itself, Eady is taking over a squad that went 5-5 last season, including two big wins over rival Athol. Twenty-seven players make up the Sens roster, with senior Morgan Softic stepping in under center. Eady noted his calmness in the pocket as a strength.
Jayden Delgado is a Swiss army knife on offense, working as a running back while also sometimes lining up at tight end. Ronnie Stone, who played on the offensive line last year, has moved into the backfield and should be a tough guy to bring down.
Sean Ramos will be the top receiver on the outside while Noah Bailey is the player Eady calls the “heart of his team” and will play on the offensive and defensive lines. Mitch Krasco, in his first year playing football, is another player to watch.
“We’re coming together,” Eady said. “We have quite a few athletes. It’s a good roster. These kids are focused and putting the work in. We had a tough camp but brought them to the BC-NIU game on Saturday. I saw them come together. Hopefully it can galvanize them early on.”
As for the goals of the season, Eady put that on the players. He said they hoped to learn more about the game, and Eady said if they do that, the results on the field will follow.
“Our goals were learning the game more thoroughly and win,” Eady said. “As a whole they said they wanted to be students of the game. If we teach them the right way to play, the safe way to play and they follow the rules and play hard, everything will fall in line from there and the wins will follow.”
Mahar kicks off its season on Saturday, traveling to the Berkshires to take on Hoosac Valley.