Sports Roundup: Football Wins Home Opener In Dominant Fashion
David Creed •
This Whaler sports roundup includes an update on the football team after they won their home opener in convincing fashion, as well as updates on the field hockey team and boys and girls soccer teams after all three teams made a Sunday trip to Martha’s Vineyard.
Football Blows Out Carver In Home Opener
Behind four touchdown runs by junior running back David Guillen-Taveras, a nifty touchdown run by senior captain Arann Hanlon, dominant offensive line play, and stout defense that allowed very little offensive movement for their opponent, the Whaler football team walked away from Vito Capizzo Stadium Saturday afternoon with a convincing 35-8 victory over the Carver Crusaders to improve to 2-0 this season.
“Being able to run the ball and be dominant upfront has kind of been the plan since we had basically the same group last year and have a lot of seniors on this team,” Whaler head coach Coreese Everett said. “We’re always trying to put our guys in the best spot, especially if you want a spot in the playoffs. Our offensive line has been dominating 24/7. We mixed in some other guys as well to see how that goes. They’re working hard and buying into protecting the quarterback as well.”
Taveras pounded his way into the endzone for his first two touchdown runs of the afternoon about nine minutes into the first quarter and just over two minutes into the second. Nantucket had some other chances early to score more points, but penalties doomed them and set them back including an unnecessary roughness penalty on the first drive of the game and a holding penalty on a punt return that Joao Silva took to the house in the first half.
Hanlon scored his touchdown with 7:06 to go in the second quarter when he zig-zagged his way through the Carver defense to find the end zone and put his team up three scores. They led 28-0 at halftime and have now outscored their opponents 70-0 in the first half through two games.
"I'm definitely happy for the outcome but like one of my coaches were saying, we're not satisfied," Everett said. "We know we have potential to put more points on the board and those are the things we want to key in on. It's not that we want to run up the score on everybody, but if we're given the opportunity to score points, we need to take care of it. Overall, we're very, very happy, but we're not satisfied.”
The Whalers scored once more in the third quarter thanks to Taveras and from there, began rotating players in. Carver, who beat Nantucket 26-15 last year in Carver and 40-6 two years ago in their last visit to the island, scored their lone touchdown in the final minutes of the game. Everett had praise for his junior running back, who he said is one of the hardest working players on the team.
"David is our rock star but you know, sometimes he's a little too nice," Everett said with a laugh. " But I don't think he realizes he's built, and I don't think he realizes how much of an impact he can have. He had a remarkable offseason. He works so hard. He is squatting over 400 pounds. He has the talent to bully kids in front of him. So we want to make sure he knows his potential and maximizes it at all the times."
Defensively, senior captain and middle linebacker Jeremy Jenkinson recorded three sacks and was all over the field making plays. Their effort had assistant head coach Mark Willett congratulating them postgame and telling them that their performance exemplified what Nantucket football is all about.
"We're a defensive team at the end of the day, especially myself, I'm a defensive guy," Everett said. "But when it comes around, we kind of struggle with our secondary. I was telling you before a little bit about that. I think they played lights out today though. So if we can stop the run game, we can stop the pass game, it's hard for teams to click.”
Nantucket will try to improve to 3-0 when they host Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational/Technical High School on the island Saturday, September 20th at 12:30 p.m. You can view more photos from this game here.
Field Hockey Stays Undefeated Following Win Over Martha's Vineyard
The Whaler field hockey team continued their strong start to the season with an impressive 3-0 victory over the Martha’s Vineyard Vineyarders Sunday afternoon. The win improved Nantucket to 3-0 this season and they received goal scoring from three different Whalers: Sadie Paterson, Evie Phelps, and Rowan Paul.
Nantucket’s defense also continued their strong play. After allowing three second half goals to the Falmouth Clippers on September 4th, the Whalers have responded with back-to-back shutouts led by senior captain Shelbi Harimon in net.
Nantucket will try to improve to 4-0 when they travel to play Westport on Wednesday, September 17th at 3:30 p.m. Some more photos from Sunday's game taken by Preston Harimon are below. Thank you Preston for sharing these!
Boys Soccers Splits Weekend Slate Of Games
After Friday’s 3-1 loss to the Monomoy Sharks on the island, Whaler boys soccer head coach Rich Brannigan’s message postgame was short and simple to me: this is a game where you burn the tape and just move onto the next one.
Nantucket had a quick turnaround with a road matchup against Martha’s Vineyard Sunday afternoon, and they were able to tighten up their defense while their star striker – sophomore Stoyan Popov – scored the only goal of the game in a 1-0 victory.
Brannigan said afterwards that Popov’s first half goal came off a nifty passing combination between Aldo Lemus and Calvin Guevara. He said the man of the match was sophomore goalkeeper Parker Furtado, who made 10 saves on the day to help Nantucket shutout out their island rival. Furtado continues to settle into a role with lots of pressure and is performing admirably in the place of senior captain Alex Ivilov, who is injured and not expected back until late October at the earliest.
The Whalers improved to 2-3 on the season and will try to get back to .500 on the year when they travel to the Cape to take on the Dennis-Yarmouth Dolphins on Thursday, September 18th at 4 p.m. You can view photos from Friday's 3-1 loss here. Guevara scored Nantucket's lone goal in the game on Friday.
Girls Soccer Loses To Martha’s Vineyard
The Whaler girls soccer team lost to Martha’s Vineyard 3-1 Sunday afternoon. Their only goal came from senior captain Chelsea Gross. Nantucket continues to play some strong soccer in their first season as a Division 3 club despite having just one win to show for their efforts with two losses by one goal and yesterday’s loss by two.
The Whalers are now 1-3-1 through their first five games of the season, but strength of schedule will likely reflect in their seeding when the MIAA's initial playoff brackets come out given the Whalers are playing larger schools early on.
Nantucket will have a few days to rest up and regroup before welcoming the St. John Paul II Lions to the island on Thursday, September 18th at 3:30 p.m. A few more photos from Sunday's game below were taken by Preston Harimon.
SCHEDULE AHEAD:
Monday, September 15th:
The golf team will be on the road playing the Nauset Warriors at 3:30 p.m.
The volleyball team will be on the road playing Rising Tide at 4:15 p.m.
Tuesday, September 16th:
The cross country team will have their first home meet of the fall season when they welcome Rising Tide to the island for a 4 p.m. meet.
The golf team will have a quick turnaround and host the Monomoy Sharks for a 3:30 p.m. match.
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