Winthrop’s Jon Gonzalez ran for three touchdowns in Friday night’s win. File photo.
By Scot Cooper
EAST BOSTON — In the middle of this Halloween season, it was the Winthrop High football team that may have pounded a stake through the heart of the Big Blue’s playoff prospects with a 20-7 win Friday night at Sartori Stadium in East Boston.
The Vikings, who are playing all of their home games in East Boston this fall, gave their playoff possibilities a big jolt, cruising past the Blue behind senior running back Jon Gonzalez.
While Winthrop waits for its new field to be finished, Gonzalez ran like he’d been playing at Sartori his whole life, sizzling the wet turf for more than 100 yards in the first quarter. Sixty-seven of those yards came on the third play of the game, when Gonzalez followed a couple of nice blocks on the right side of the line and outraced all of the Blue defenders for six points. Jonathan Applebee’s PAT kick was true, and the Vikings had a lead they would never relinquish.
Gonzalez said it was good to get a big win over a good team like Swampscott, especially when each win is so very important for playoff positioning.
“We knew it was a very big game for our team, and we knew we all had to come together and play well to win this one. We did, over Swampscott, who always has a good football team,” Gonzalez said. “The team played hard, the team played great, and we’re very happy to come out with a big win tonight.”
Down seven in the first quarter, Colin Frary moved Swampscott down the field on its first possession, connecting with Sean Lahrizi on third-and-goal from five yards out. Lahrizi’s kick tied the score, but that was the last sniff of the end zone for the Blue.
Gonzalez scored his second touchdown in the second quarter, from one yard out. Gonzalez ran another one in, this time from 17 yards out with 33 seconds to go before halftime, for his third of the game.
Winthrop coach Sean Driscoll said Gonzalez was huge for his team, but the defense deserves props too, as it stuffed the Blue twice from inside the 10-yard line in the second half to help secure the win.
“Good game by Gonzalez, great job on those two deep stops by our defense, we needed this game and the guys came out and took it,” Driscoll said. “We’re 3-4 now, we need some help, boy we’re happy where we are, but if we had some better starts earlier in the season, who knows where we’d be now.”
For Swampscott (3-4) coach Bobby Serino, three straight losses have left him scratching his head.
“I’m baffled, we play one, two good quarters each game, you can’t win that way,” Serino said.