Winchester Football Struggles in Season Opener

A young and inexperienced  football team looked just that Friday night, facing one of last year’s Division 3A Super Bowl finalists on the road.

The Sachems, , fell 24-0 to Cardinal Spellman, a Catholic school in Brockton, in coach Wally Dembowski’s debut.

“I asked the guys in the locker room to raise their hand if they were starting in their first varsity game, and I think I had 16 hands go up,” the former Northeastern University defensive coordinator, Dembowski, said.

“They’re learning every day though,” he added, “and they have real good, positive attitudes.”

Cardinal Spellman finished 12-1 last season behind star running back Blaise Branch. The team lost 21-7 to Holliston in the Division 3A Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium.

On Friday, senior co-captains Pat Hinkley and Dan Kustka replaced the void left by Branch, now a halfback at Bridgewater State University. Hinkley had all three touchdowns for Cardinal Spellman, while both ran for close to 100 yards on the ground.

For Winchester, quarterback Tim Mangano filled in for an injured Tommy Pine, as the team’s projected starter was hurt in practice last Tuesday.

Mangano threw an interception in the first quarter, which set up Hinkley’s first touchdown. Later in the first half, with the Sachems down 14-0, after Connor Costello picked up two big gains on the ground, Mangano hit receiver Joe Ntege for 33 yards, which brought the ball to Cardinal Spellman’s 12-yard line. The Sachems would turn the ball over on downs, however, as a Cardinal Spellman linebacker deflected a Mangano pass on fourth down that was headed for a wide-open receiver in the end zone.

Ntege, a senior, is one of Winchester’s returning starters, along with senior co-captains Lars Zandberg (tight end/defensive end) and Ken Crotty (center/middle linebacker).

In the second half, Cardinal Spellman size, strength and physicality proved to be the difference, according to Dembowski, as they added 10 more points on another Hinkley touchdown and a late field goal.

Winchester opens Middlesex League action at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, at home against Melrose. Pine is questionable for that game.

Dembowski said he hopes his team can improve upon some of the mistakes it made against Cardinal Spellman and keep moving in the right direction.