Wakefield Loses To Melrose 14-15

A heart breaker of sorts; the Wakefield Warriors held a 14-6 lead at one point in the game, but they were not able to hold onto that lead as they ended up losing 14-15. The one thing that hurt the Warriors was turnovers. QB Brian Millea had a fumble and an interception. The latter cost the Warriors the game.

Wakefield lost its best receiver, Shane Taylor, early in the game. Taylor was on the ground for several minutes with an apparent leg injury. He got injured following a first down catch. Taylor did not return to the game and was later driven to the hospital via ambulance.

RB Martin Hyppolite, who injured himself two weeks ago, was back on the field for the Warriors. He clearly was not 100%, but he was occasionally able to move the ball down field. Overall, the Warriors offensive attack was weak, particularly due to Melrose's strong front seven. The Red Raider defenders aren't exactly huge guys, but they play very tough and plug the gaps. And that is exactly what they did today against Wakefield.

One player I have to give a lot of credit to was dressed in Red and not Silver. That player is Melrose QB Dale Parsons. Parsons is a lengthy senior who stands out not because of a great arm, but because the dude is quick. If nobody was open, he just ran through gaps for gains of 10+ yards. He threw an early interception to his QB counterpart Millea, but soon after that he was right on the money.

With less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the Red Raiders were inside the 20 yard line of Wakefield. A costly mistake came in the form a Nick Serino hold. Serino, perhaps unintentionally, held onto a Melrose receiver and unfortunately for him the referees saw this. The Red Raiders gained the first down and I believe they wound up kicking what would be the game winning field goal.

Wakefield's streak of Thanksgiving wins over Melrose is now over. Wakefield simply wasn't as good as they were in other years. They didn't have the offense of 2005 (Tom McManama, Shane Brown, Marc Fiore) or the defense of 2006 (Bill Curran, Chris Roberto). I can't imagine Wakefield getting any better either as the team, despite having a host of current juniors, will be quite young and inexperienced. Good job, Melrose on a well played game.