Lee football looks to pass Monument in standings

NORTH ADAMS – Despite a recent 42-28 loss to Drury last Saturday, the Wildcats look to recover in time for this Saturday’s season finale against Monument Mountain.

“Offensively, a lot of positives from last week and we hope to build on that,” said Lee Head Coach Keith Thomson.

The Wildcats were able to get the ground game going against Drury by rushing for over 100 yards. However, this week, look for the county’s leading passer, Deaglan Giarolo, who has almost 1,000 yards through the air this season, to exploit a weak Spartan secondary in what is likely to be a scoring shootout.

“We are confident that we can have some success lining up and throwing the football against them,” Thomson said.

For the Spartans, they will use their size up front to try to run the football around the corners with running backs Jesse Dupont and Brandon Curtin, who has replaced star Malik Wilbon, who left the team.

Defending the running game was something Lee struggled with last week against Drury and the Blue Devils’ leading rusher, Jose Melendez.

“Defensively we played poorly,” Thomson said after the Drury loss. “We had a tough injury with losing Zach DiSantis early on – and we couldn’t get them off the field.”

DiSantis was taken to the hospital with a broken eye socket, the result of his helmet hitting his face as he hit the ground.

He passed out, came to and immediately asked the attending EMT if he could return to play.

“[DiSantis] has a shiner but he is in good spirits,” Thomson said of his two-way star player. “We are glad he is okay.”

Even with DiSantis out on Saturday with the injury, Thomson will rely on Giarolo and the remaining receiving corps to put points on the board, something the ‘Cats were able to do against Drury.

“With [Giarolo’s] development as a young quarterback, you have to take the highs and the lows,” Thomson said. “He has progressed nicely, he has thrown balls across the middle of the field very well, that was our game plan [against Drury]…to attack them over the middle of the field and we had lots of success with it.”

With Giarolo returning next year for his senior season, his growth on the field this year in making smart football decisions is something Thomson’s football program can build on for next year.

“[Against Drury] Giarolo was poised, and we were most happy with his decisions with the football, he didn’t force anything – very mature with the football,” Thomson said.

With Lee looking to get their first county win of the season on Saturday, the ‘Cats had to first get by Hurricane Sandy on Monday, which caused problems in organizing their first practice of the week on Tuesday afternoon.

“Things have been a little bit funky,” Thomson said of this week’s schedule. “We were fortunate to get out on the field [Tuesday]; we weren’t at full capacity with everyone here – we had some kids with issues, and it was difficult getting the word out with phone lines down and kids without power.”

It was the first day Lee could get on the field since their game on Saturday.

“Not having practice for three to four days is a long stretch going into the last game of the season,” Thomson said. “But it was good to get back in the routine and get them together again.”

Posted by Tim Davis on November 1, 2012. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry