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Methuen falls hard at Chelmsford

Thursday, October, 06 By Jeff Hamrick

CHELMSFORD — The good news for Methuen was the Rangers outscored 12th-ranked Chelmsford 18-14 in the second half.

Unfortunately, the Lions did the bulk of their scoring before intermission.

Chelmsford held Methuen to 12 total yards on eight first-half plays and routed the visiting Rangers 56-18 last night.

“I just told my guys, I’d see them tomorrow,” said a disappointed Methuen coach Tom Tone, whose squad lost its third straight after opening the season with a pair of victories. “I just told them to stick together, keep battling and I’ll see them tomorrow at practice ... Everyone’s got to be better. We have to coach better and play better”

Chelmsford, which opened the scoring with a touchdown on a blocked Methuen punt on the game’s first possession, scored on each of its first six possessions. But it wasn’t as if the Lions had to go very far on any of them. Not only did the Lions always seem to have a short field, it also didn’t take them long to find the end zone.

On its five offensive touchdowns in the first half, Chelmsford only needed drives of 1, 15, 22, 33 and 40 yards. None of the possessions lasted longer than 1:43 and two of them were 17 seconds or quicker.

“We’ve got a tough defense,” Chelmsford coach Bruce Rich said. “We swarmed to the ball tonight and they gave us I don’t know how many short fields. But it starts with defense, and our kids did their homework. They read the scouting reports.”

Methuen twice failed on fourth down attempts. The first time was a fourth-and-1 from its own 22 with 4:04 left in the first quarter, and the second was a fourth-and-7 from its own 33 with 5:10 left in the second quarter.

“We’re going to go for it if it’s fourth-and-under a yard,” Tone said. “If we can’t get that, then it’s not going to be our game that day.”

After Chelmsford scored to take a 49-0 lead with 5:50 left in the third, kicker Charlie Calenda had as many kicks (14) as Methuen had plays from scrimmage.
But the Rangers did find some spark behind backup

quarterback Austin George-Williams, who scored on a 45 yard run and completed all six of his passes, including a 2-yard scoring toss to Dylan Doucette late in the fourth.

“He did a great job,” Tone said of his sophomore signal caller. “We have real, real high expectations of him. We worked him a lot at quarterback this week. He played receiver for us the whole first half. I think he has a chance to be a special kid, so we’re going to see if we can get the ball in his hands more.”