Football Preview: Melrose Hopes to Bounce Back Against Beverly

The Melrose High School football season got off to a rough start last week with a 34-0 shutout loss to Wilmington at home.

Tonight at 7 p.m., the Raiders will look to turn things around when they host Beverly High, another team looking for its first win of the season.

Beverly lost its opener, 32-19, to Concord-Carlisle, but is also dealing with some of the same growing pains as Melrose.

After finishing 7-3 overall last season, Beverly lost most of its offense to graduation, including wide receiver Justin Marrs, who led the team with 617 yards and nine touchdowns and quarterback Mark Hannable, who threw for 1,261 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Despite the losses on offense, the Panthers were still able to put up some points against a tough Concord-Carlisle team.

"They're good up front," said Melrose head coach Tim Morris. "They're big up front. I think a lot of their problem was that they're in a new offense and they're having their growing pains in that."

"They still put 19 points on the board. They have a good quarterback who's a senior and a good junior running back so we have our work cut out for us. "

Melrose is no stranger to inexperience. Last season the injury bug struck big time as the team lost all three of its quarterbacks to injury along with linebacker and running back Bobby Hanson.

"We have a lot of young guys," said Morris. "They just didn't play well and gave up too many plays on defense. When we got going on offense we seemed to get penalties or turnovers. We're just working at it to get better. We're playing a lot of guys, but a lot of guys are gaining their experience now."

This year Hanson is back and will be taking hand offs from junior quarterback Brett Barbati, who served as the third string quarterback last season before getting hurt.

Barbati will have two talented targets at receiver in Dan Johnson and Chris Fimiani.

"Dan Johnson did a good job and had a couple of receptions the other night," said Morris. "But he was primarily a J.V. player last year."

Senior center Ben Ouellette will be anchoring the offensive line for the second year in a row and will be flanked by senior guard Scott Moore, senior tackle Cody Lusas, guard Rob Zucchari  and junior tackle Brendan McGonagle.

The offensive line should be a bright spot for Melrose this season and should open up some holes for running backs Spencer Walsh and Aaron Jones.

"I think we just need to be consistent and just keep getting reps," said Morris. "It's nothing we really have to change. We just have to get better and get more experience and eliminate some of those stupid mistakes."