PEABODY — The Bishop Fenwick football team kicked off the 2024 season with a dominant 25-6 win over visiting Marblehead Friday night at Donaldson Stadium.
Truth be told, the Crusaders ran roughshod over the Magicians, racking up 322 yards rushing to the Magicians’ 98.
Fenwick head coach Dave Woods, who collected his 199th win, especially liked what he saw from the offensive line (center Aidan Byrne, guards Reid Smith, and tackles Tyler Santos and Tye Piraino), which opened huge holes all night long.
“We didn’t throw the ball much, but we ran the ball a lot which was the thought coming in,” Woods said. “We saw them in a couple of scrimmages and they struggled stopping the run a little bit. They have some great skill-kids, but we thought up front, maybe, we take advantage. We have experience up front and those guys did a great job.”
Marblehead head coach Jim Rudloff said before the game that after coming off an 0-4 start in 2023, his goal was to get off to a good start. It did.
The Magicians took the opening kickoff and drove 75 yards in 15 plays, capped by a 5-yard touchdown scamper into the endzone by Bannis Bernando (4 carries, 18 yards) to grab a 6-0 lead. The only problem was the promising start came to a screeching halt as that was as good as it got for the Magicians, who struggled to move the ball against a stingy Crusaders’ defense, which helped out with five forced turnovers.
Woods highlighted the play of Shane Conway (in his first varsity start) and Dylan Patterulli (23 carries, 173 yards, 2 TD).
“Shane had a great week of practice and was our practice player of the week and had a phenomenal game,” Woods said. “And so did Dylan at running back and linebacker. In fact, our whole offensive line was outstanding tonight. It was a great start for us.”
Fenwick didn’t take much time to answer the Magicians’ opening drive score. Thanks to a textbook display of blocking from the O-line, Patterulli was barely touched on a 57-yard run to knot the score, 6-6, with 2:34 left in the first quarter.
On the second play of its next drive, Marblehead fumbled, handing the ball to Fenwick on the Marblehead 39. Woods showed his own bag of tricks to keep the drive alive. On fourth-and-7 at the 50, Aidan Silva (1-for-1) dropped back to punt, but faked it, instead finding Odin Garren (2 catches, 31 yards) for a 14-yard pickup and first down. Two plays later, Patterulli, again untouched, ran it in from 23 yards out to put the Crusaders on top, 12-6, with about 11 minutes to go in the half.
Woods said he “wasn’t too comfortable” with just a six-point lead at halftime.
“When you’re in at halftime and the other team has turned the ball over three times and it was only 12-6, I wasn’t too comfortable because usually those things even themselves out, but again, our guys played physical football for all four quarters so I was proud of that.”
Fenwick picked up where it left off in the third quarter. Conroy recovered a fumble at the Fenwick 41. Marblehead came up with a big defensive play when Crew Monaco tackled Patterulli for a 5-yard loss on a third-and-goal from the 4. But Fenwick quarterback Brayden Clifford (3 carries, 23 yards, 1-for-4, 21 yards, INT) turned tables, running it in from 9 yards out to stretch the lead to 18-6 with five minutes left in the third.
Fenwick’s final score was the cherry on top of the sundae. Marblehead had driven to the Fenwick 14. Silva snagged an interception in the endzone to give the ball back to the Crusaders. Three plays later, Craig Masone (4 carries, 90 yards) electrified the crowd when he turned on the jets and, simply put, outran everybody 70 yards into the endzone. Silva tacked on the extra point for good measure.
Woods added that Levenishti and Garron were strong on both defense and offense.
“Louis had a couple of good tackles for losses and made some huge blocks on offense, too,” Woods said. “He and Odin had great games on both sides of the ball. Coach (Dave) Dugan, as always, had a great defensive gameplan and our guys just played tough, tough defense.”
Fenwick’s Tyler Connolly helped the Crusaders’ cause with 49 rushing yards on five carries.
Marblehead quarterback Cole Wales had a busy night, completing 18-of-32 passes for 182 yards with three interceptions. He also led the Magicians’ ground game with 36 yards on 12 carries. Finn Gallup completed one pass for 8 yards. Rylan Golden led the Magicians’ receivers with six catches for 82 yards. Sam Thompson (4 catches, 26 yards), Yael Garcia (catch, 19 yards; 3 carries, 19 yards), Monaco (4 catches, 20 yards), Bannis (catch, 15 yards), Cam Quigley (catch, 10 yards) and Brady Selvais (catch, 8 yards; 6 carries, 25 yards) also contributed.
Rudloff said the turnovers were only part of the problem.
“With the turnovers, we really got our pants pulled down,” Rudloff said. “Taking nothing away from Bishop Fenwick, which is a much better team than we are, I said to the kids after the first half we did everything we could do in the first half to make sure that we couldn’t win. We tried to turn it around in the second half and then we just kept making the same mistakes over and over again. We didn’t line up right. We were running the wrong plays on offense. But this has been going on the entire preseason. This is something that we just don’t seem to fix.”
“We’re doing a very bad job of coaching and the players are doing a very bad job of being coached. There were a couple of kids who played their hearts out, but I don’t know of anyone who played well.”
Fenwick beat Marblehead, 14-10, in the season-opener last year.
It doesn’t get any easier for Marblehead next week, when the Magicians hit the road Friday night against defending Division 2 Super Bowl champion King Philip (7 p.m.). The Magicians lost, 34-6, to the Warriors in Week 2 of the regular season last year.
Fenwick has a bye week before returning to action Sept. 21 against Catholic Central League rival Bishop Stang at home (1 p.m.). The Crusaders hope to avenge last year’s 24-14 loss.
