The Nantucket football team has played some of their best football in recent weeks. After defeating the Sandwich Blue Knights last month 34-26 in triple overtime, they took care of business against their biggest rival, Martha’s Vineyard, 27-7 on Sunday.
But none of that matters now that the Whalers have flipped the page and transitioned out of the regular season. They have quickly turned their attention to the Div. 7 MIAA state tournament. The #11 Whalers will travel to Cohasset to take on the #6 Skippers today, on the road, at 3:30pm. Nantucket enters the game as an underdog but Whaler head coach Joe Perry believes in his team and their ability to play good football this afternoon.
“I’ve seen a lot of growth here,” he said. “A lot of football knowledge was gained here, a lot of physical maturity and leadership especially in that senior group. I am always nervous for these football games because you are playing the best. We had a good week of practice overall.”
Perry knows senior running back Justin Bloise will need to anchor the offense and play his best football game of the season to give Nantucket an opportunity to pull off the road upset. He also sees senior wide receiver’s Makai Bodden and JJ Bennett as players who need to have a great game. But the key to the game in his eyes is the offensive and defensive lines.
“The lineman are who I look at as needing to have a great game,” Perry said. “We can match up with Cohasset pound for pound but we need to see which team’s five guys are more physical. If we are just a little bit more physical it allows Justin and Makai to spring from anywhere, gives (quarterback) Carlos Aguilar some time to throw the football. If we can pick up some of these blitzes we should be good.”
Skippers head coach Pete Afanasiw said one of the strengths of his team is their balance. He said they don’t need one particular player to play a great game each week in order to win and instead rely on several players to produce and contribute towards his team’s success.
“We aren’t a team that has a lot of 65 or 70 yard touchdowns,” Afanasiw said. “Our team isn’t centered around one individual. We are pretty well balanced and that leads to a good mix where one kid doesn’t need to light it up every game.”
The Skippers do get solid quarterback play week after week from their 6’4 junior quarterback Will Baker under center while 6’0 sophomore running back Liam Appleton continues to be an excellent running back for them as well. They have size at the skill positions but Afanasiw, who has been the Skippers head coach for 16 years, said this year’s offensive line isn’t as big as some of his past lines.
“Probably one of our smallest offensive lines we have had since I came here,” he said. “Our biggest guy isn’t any bigger than 215 or 220 pounds. These guys just work hard in practice and are tough as nails.”
Cohasset and Nantucket each finished the regular season 5-2, but one of Nantucket’s wins was picked up after Monomoy forfeited the game.
The one common opponent each team had was the Mashpee Falcons. The Whalers lost to Mashpee 28-6 while Cohasset beat the Falcons 42-6.
“Mashpee is always a tough team,” Afanasiw said. “It was just one of those games where you can’t even make a mistake if you try. Everything went our way in that Mashpee game. We have certainly been on the other side of it before where nothing seems to go our way though so we happily took it.”
The Whalers trailed Mashpee 8-6 going into the final quarter of their game, but Mashpee gashed the Whaler’s defense with their running game after being gifted a pair of short fields from Nantucket turnovers. Perry said he knows his team needs to play a tougher, smarter style of football to avoid a similar fate this afternoon to Cohasset.
“This is going to be physical football game with a lot of talented players,” Perry said. “They don’t make many mistakes and they are well coached. You can’t make mistakes with this team. I was surprised they manhandled Mashpee (42-6) because that is a good program but it goes to show what Cohasset is capable of. They always have good athletes and we are going to have to bang.”
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