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Newburyport buries Hamilton-Wenham

Friday, October, 05 By Dan Guttenplan
Sports editor

NEWBURYPORT | The balance of power shifted in the Cape Ann Small last night with Newburyport emerging as the team to beat.

The Clippers (3-2) beat a Hamilton-Wenham team many believed to be the CAL Small front-runner in convincing fashion | 34-13 | at World War Memorial Stadium. Clippers tailback Justin Burl was the workhorse, carrying the ball 31 times for 152 yards and two touchdowns.

Joe Clancy continued to assert himself as the top quarterback in the Cape Ann League, completing 13 of 19 passes for 190 yards and two touchdowns.

But the newest Friday night hero made perhaps the greatest contribution. Freshman Andrew Sokol caught eight passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns. He had three carries for 17 yards and another touchdown. And he also intercepted a pass from Generals quarterback Andy Duval to thwart a potential scoring drive in the third quarter.

"We wanted to make a statement that we're the team to beat," Sokol said. "We knew it was a big game, and we came ready to play. Now the CAL Small has to come through Newburyport."

The underdog Clippers led wire-to-wire and seemingly stole the hearts of the Generals (2-2) by stretching the lead to 21-0 on a 30-yard touchdown pass from Clancy to Sokol with 0.8 second left in the first half.

The Generals showed their first signs on life just after the break on a 34-yard scoring drive that was capped on a Jake Cotter 12-yard touchdown run. Cotter added another 64-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter, but that was the extent of the highlights for the Generals.

"We expected to be able to compete with these guys, but the score was a bit of a surprise," Gaudiano said. "You could say Hamilton-Wenham was the team to beat, but we wanted to make a statement that we're right there. It's still early to think about all of that, but we played mistake-free game on both sides of the ball."

The Clippers will play at Lawrence next Friday night (7 p.m.). One would think the Newburyport coaching staff and players would be interested in tonight's showdown between the Lancers (1-3) and host Pentucket (7 p.m.). Lawrence's lone win came against Amesbury (16-7) in Week 2.

When Newburyport and Lawrence met last year, the Clippers won, 21-6. But Gaudiano expects no carry-over this season.

"We've got to get on a bus and drive to Lawrence, and I guarantee (last night's) game will have no relevance," Gaudiano said. "We had a great week of practice last week after the Pentucket (20-17) loss on Saturday. We'll need another great week of practice this week."