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Reggies defense delivers 'Bowl' statement

Saturday, November, 08 By Hector Longo
Staff writer

WEST ANDOVER - There were no "bowl" representatives taking in the Saturday morning festivities at Gleason Stadium.

That did little to blunt the Greater Lawrence Tech Reggies, who made another statement to the "State Vocational Bowl" folks, dominating Greater Lowell, 28-14.

"Win one more game, win one more game and we'll go to the Tech Bowl," said junior defensive demon Juan "Bamboo" Olivo, who opened the game with a tackle for loss and punctuated the victory with a closing quarterback sack.

Not so fast. All the Reggies can do is knock off Shawsheen here Saturday then hope for the postseason appointment.

"It's still up in the air," said coach Tony Sarkis, whose 4-5 club would be a respectable 3-1 in the CAC large with a win next week. "I don't what the dynamic of the process is, but right now, the way we're playing, if we win, I think we deserve it. This is a different team than you saw at the beginning of the year."

Olivo (9 tackles, 2 sacks, one swatted pass), Angel Rivera (11 tackles) and the rest of the Greater Lawrence defense turned more than a few heads yesterday, holding the Gryphons to a mere 131 yards of offense on 43 plays. And 39 of the yards and a score came on two plays against the Reggie JVs.

"Angel was doing it inside," said Olivo of the the junior inside linebacker. "We executed and made the plays out there."

Eric Notenboom, Miguel Baez and Anthony Ocasio all delivered big hits for Greater Lawrence, which rode its greyhound, senior Wadscar Gomez to a 21-0 lead.

Gomez, who ran for 190 yards on 25 carries, broke a tight game open with his first carry of the second half, bursting 62 yards on the opening play of the second half. The TD, his second of three on the day, made it 13-0 and point the defense in a position to swarm, which it did.

"Wadscar just keeps getting better," said Sarkis, who gave Gomez the ball for the first time in Week 4 and has watched him roll up 849 yards on 143 rushes on the last six games.

Scrappy Greater Lowell, to its credit, sliced the lead to 21-6 and after and onside kick, 21-14, but on a fourth-and-long in the final minute, Greater Lawrence iced it when Juan Carlos Gomez hit Anthony Ocasio on a 24-yard TD bomb, Gomez' fifth TD toss of the year.

Following the Shawsheen game, the Reggies travel to rival Lawrence for a Thanksgiving eve clash at Veterans Memorial Stadium.