After Promising Start, Winchester Stumbles In Second Half

There's no need to debate with your buddies what the turning point of Friday's football game between Reading and Winchester was. You didn't see it and neither did anyone else.

Down 16-15 to Winchester at the break, Reading outscored the visiting Sachems, 21-0, in the second half to win 36-16 and take the Middlesex Liberty title at a spotless 5-0. All that, thanks to halftime.

"We talked about fitting things better on defense, lining up right," said Reading coach John Fiore of his team's halftime break. "Offensively, kinda got a few things squared away to what they were doing, what we were doing and how we had to block things up. Things went better after the half. We had some great senior leadership in the second half. You gotta play 44 minutes. That's a cliche machine alert."

Make sense? If not then hear what Winchester coach Wally Dembowski had to say.

"That half of football in the second half was nothing we've done all year long on defense. We'd didn't execute anything, we didn't tackle worth our souls. They weren't doing anything we hadn't seen. It was like a fire drill. It was 16-15 at halftime, we kicked off and said, okay, here we go. We lost something in translation from the locker room to the field."

After a first 22 minutes in which Winchester ran 33 plays to Reading's 12, the Rockets took the second-half kickoff and ran nine plays that culminated in Matt Sannella's 2-yard scoring run, his second TD of the night. After John DiMare's conversion run Reading was on top, 23-16. The next two Winchester possessions were three-and-out and after the second Reading cashed in. With the ball on Winchester's 42, Domenic Masucci ran it in and with 2:10 left in the third quarter it was now 30-16 Reading.

Again Winchester went three and out and again Reading cashed in. A six-play drive ended on a 15-yard halfback option pass from Masucci to Pat Conroy for the score and a 36-16 lead. The next Winchester drive ended in an interception by Jeremy Rosh. After Reading turned it over on downs, Winchester's next drive ended with four straight incomplete passes and the clock soon hit 0:00.

For Winchester, the first half gave hope of a second straight win over Reading. Tony Fiorentino had the Sachems on top after a 25-yard touchdown pass to Matt Romagna, a 25-yard field goal, and and 11-yard scoring pass to Patrick Ross. There was little indication after Fiorentino hit Ross 28 seconds before halftime that it would be the end of Winchester's scoring for the night.

"A year ago we're getting pounded by everyone, with injuries mounting up. Now we're Middlesex League champions," said Fiore. "I couldn't be prouder of our kids. Season two begins in a couple hours."

Season two refers to the MIAA playoffs where Reading (6-1) should be the No. 3 seed in Division 2 North and get a home game. Winchester (4-3) will make the Division 3 North field but the loss to Reading means a first-round road game. Those pairings come out Sunday afternoon.

Photo by Bob Holmes