Karen Magnifico

Masco celebrating with the cup front and center.

In a battle of two top-20 teams, the Winchester Red and Black ran all over the Masco Chieftains last Friday night, winning 56-22.

The Chieftains had a promising first two drives offensively, but defensively it was a completely different story. They had no answers for Winchester’s bell cow, senior Gianni DePrimeo, who ran for 290 yards and five touchdowns.

“We gotta come out and be more physical and make sure to communicate more often. We had a lack of communication, and our physicality wasn’t tough enough,” said senior linebacker Alex Cantalupo. “In practice, we worked a lot on being more physical when taking on blocks and focused on getting the comms up so that the defense can be the best it can be.”

Despite being down almost the entire first half, the Chieftain offense had some promising drives. Star senior captain and running back Jack Fabiano broke one for 55 yards to match the Red and Black on the Chieftains’ second drive. He finished the day with 16 carries for 101 yards, a touchdown, and a two-point conversion.

Because the Chieftains trailed big for most of the game and Fabiano was slightly banged up, quarterback Drew Gustafson was forced to rely on the passing game. One of the highlights came right before the half on fourth-and-goal from the one-yard line. Offensive coordinator Neil Weidman made a gutsy call to throw the ball, and it paid off as Gustafson found Weidman on a fantastic route for the touchdown.

Weidman was Gustafson’s go-to target all night, hauling in eight catches for 147 yards and the score. Gustafson went 18-for-32 with 228 yards and two touchdowns. The duo took some big hits but will look to tear up the Peabody Tanners’ defense on Friday.

“We know we’re a talented team, and I think we let that get to our heads a little bit,” said Weidman. “We lost a bit of that hunger we usually have last week, but we are hungrier than we’ve been in a long time.”

Weidman leads the North Shore in catches (24) and yards (458) and is second in receiving touchdowns (4).

“No one wants to feel how we felt last Friday, which has us preparing very hard for this week,” said Weidman. “I think if all goes well with our receiving core and Gustafson behind center, we can throw it on anyone.”

After giving up an 80-yard touchdown run on the first play of the second half, it became evident that the Chieftain defense had run out of gas and wanted no part in tackling DePrimeo.

“Can I tell you what went well? I don’t know. Obviously, we didn’t tackle very well at all as an entire unit on defense, but we also made a lot of critical errors in all three phases of the game,” said head coach Mike Sheehan. “It’s tough turning the ball over in a game like that as many times as we did. Getting behind the sticks after first down with some quarterback-center exchanges… Every time it looked like we seized a sliver of momentum—which they didn’t give up much of—we gave it right back. A lot of self-inflicted wounds.”

Unfortunately for the Chieftains, they were without two top players: senior captain Nino Stefanelli and senior defensive back Ryan Richardson. With these players sidelined for a few more weeks, the Chieftains will use this week of practice to figure out effective defensive schemes that fit their current personnel.

“It’s up to our team how we bounce back. We are a senior-heavy team, and with that comes a level of maturity,” said Sheehan. “As a coaching staff, we’re going to find every which way to fix the problems, clean up the mistakes, and we’ll be resilient.”

After a long and grueling road trip of all out-of-conference games, the Chieftains finally get their home opener and first Northeast Conference matchup. They’ll look for a bounce-back game against the struggling Peabody Tanners, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Bunker Stadium.

Individual Statistics 

RUSHING: Masconomet — Jack Fabiano 15-97, Alex Cantalupo 3-6, Tripp Weidman 1-5, Drew Gustafson 2-(-13).

PASSING: Masconomet — Gustafson 18-32-238-2-2, T. Weidman 0-1-0-0-0.

RECEIVING: Masconomet — Cal Weidman 8-147, Ayden Schmitt 2-33, Liam Giney 3-31, Fabiano 4-25, Cantalupo 1-1.