Super Bowl Saturday

Only Rams stand between Hawks and a fifth straight title

Kevin Pomeroy, Sports Editor
Posted 12/4/14

For years and years, two of the best, most traditional high school football programs in the state of Rhode Island always seemed to avoid each other when it mattered most.

Boy, have things …

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Super Bowl Saturday

Only Rams stand between Hawks and a fifth straight title

Posted

For years and years, two of the best, most traditional high school football programs in the state of Rhode Island always seemed to avoid each other when it mattered most.

Boy, have things changed.

On Saturday, for the third time in four seasons – and only the third time overall – the Bishop Hendricken football team will square off with La Salle Academy for the biggest crown in the smallest state.

Starting at 12 p.m., the Hawks and Rams will take to the Cranston Stadium turf in the Division I Super Bowl, with the championship on the line.

No. 2 Hendricken, which went 7-1 during the regular season, will be trying to become the only team in the highest division, dating back to 1932, to win five consecutive Super Bowls.

It’s top-seeded, undefeated La Salle’s job to stop it. The Rams, winners of a D-I-best 15 Super Bowls (along with East Providence) are seeking their first Super Bowl title since 2008 and just their second in the last 13 years.

“It’s exciting to be a part of,” said Hendricken head coach Keith Croft. “You get kind of accustomed to it. I think it’s great for the fans and alumni, players and coaches. We love it. It’s stressful, but it’s what we thrive on.”

No one has thrived in the most pressure-packed spots more than the Hawks, who are playing in their seventh Super Bowl in eight seasons. Of course, the Rams are no strangers to these stakes either, playing in their 10th Super Bowl in 15 seasons.

As the unquestioned two best teams in the state this year – no other D-I team had fewer than three losses – they’ve been on a collision course since day one.

“I think there’s comfort in the fact that we’ve been in this spot before,” Croft said.

That comfort, obviously, comes from the championship wins in each of the past four seasons. The postseason has become Hendricken’s time. Yet, Croft, and La Salle head coach Geoff Marcone, both insist that recent history has very little to do with the outcome of Saturday’s game.

There are two layers of recent Hawks-Rams history. The first is the two previous Super Bowl meetings. In both 2011 and 2012, La Salle entered the big game with an 8-0 record as the No. 1 seed, having defeated Hendricken during the regular season. The Hawks entered both games with a 6-2 mark as the No. 2 seed.

The script flipped once the game was played though, as Hendricken pulled off two of the biggest upsets in state history, winning the games 17-14 and 26-20, respectively.

The most recent of those games took place when the current seniors were sophomores, so there are some players who will play Saturday that were on the field back in 2012.

Still, neither coach sees much correlation.

“It’s a championship game,” Croft said. “At the end of the day you want to be the team that has the trophy. What you’ve done in the past may be great, but it’s not worth much more than a pat on the back at this point.”

The more relevant history is this year’s regular season meeting on Nov. 7, in which the Rams used a final-minute touchdown run by Kyron Lopes to pull out a 15-9 victory.

Yet, the way that game played out showed very little separation either. It certainly could have gone either way, making it not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Both teams got a look at the other one that day. What they found out was that the team that makes the fewest mistakes – or maybe the team that gets the ball last – will wind up winning the game.

More so than the previous two Super Bowl meetings between the two, and more so than any opponent in Hendricken’s past four Super Bowls, the roles of favorite and underdog aren’t very clearly defined.

“It’s just such a different time (than 2011-12),” Croft said. “They were a different team then, we were a different team then. We were huge underdogs then. Now, I think it’s fair to say that we’re an underdog, but you’re talking about a game that’s probably going to be decided in the last 30 seconds of play.”

La Salle and Hendricken are each loaded with playmakers on both sides of the ball. The top two ranked offenses and the top two ranked defenses, the Hawks and Rams both rely heavily on a multi-faceted ground game and an opportunistic pass game, plus an elite pass rush and the best secondaries in the state.

Hendricken, offensively, has watched senior quarterback John Toppa morph into a star, with wide receiver Lee Moses emerging as perhaps the state’s most dangerous player with the ball in his hands in the flat. Senior Power Kanga, another speedster, has had his share of big plays, as have receivers Caleb Wurster and Andrew Hopgood.

In the backfield, the Hawks have been depleted due to injuries to Gary Gibbs and Terrance Gibbs. Jake Derderian and Matt DiTondo have stepped in to fill the void some, while Moses and Kanga are seeing more time in the backfield operating out of a number of different formations. It’s become a running back by committee system, but one that’s working.

The x-factor, though, is the offensive line.

“If they can make a little improvement from the regular season game, it’s going to make a big difference overall,” Croft said.

Hendricken’s athletes may be second to none, but La Salle is clearly the team that can run with them the best. Cornerback C.J. Waite has lived up to his hype as one of the most dynamic offensive players around, but his work in the secondary is also key, especially against Hendricken. Cameron Morenzi has also excelled in the secondary.

Another key player for the Rams, and the player who put the reins on Toppa the most in the regular season meeting between the teams was junior defensive end Avien Peah.

All-State linebacker Nick Varrichione is a difference-maker, too, as he proved two weeks ago when his interception return for a touchdown against Cranston East proved to be the difference in a 14-7 D-I semifinal victory for La Salle.

“I think we need to block their defensive front,” Croft said. “That’s really what did us in that game. We had missed tackles and some things happen defensively that hurt us in certain spots, but we just had trouble moving the ball against them.”

When La Salle has the ball, junior signal-caller Jace Pena has come a long way over the past two years, and though his numbers don’t jump off the page, he’s proven that he can throw the ball when called upon.

Lopes is the team’s top back, and he’s joined by the speedy Waite and senior Don’Trae Odufunade, another bruiser.

Those big backs found the end zone against Hendricken in the last meeting, but the Hawks stood up to them without a ton of trouble, for the most part. Hendricken defensive tackle Donte Bell, listed at 6-foot-2, 296-pounds, is a weapon all the time but particularly against the Rams up the middle. End Kwity Paye has been a standout all season long, as have linebackers James Sauro, Sam Hill, Shane Olson and Joe DeGiulio. Moses, Kanga, Nate Gyampo and Wurster have made plays in the secondary.

On paper, the two teams are both loaded.

And, more importantly for Saturday, they’re basically dead even. There’s very little margin for error.

And sometime on Saturday afternoon, one team will see its 2014 football season conclude the way they planned when it began during summer passing league – with a championship.

“From my experience, the next three days are going to tell a lot about the type of team we have,” Croft said. “Come Fridays practice the past four or five years I’ve looked at one of my coaches and said, ‘They’re ready. They have that look.’ I’m hoping to see that look.”

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