Worcester Telegram & Gazette: "(WSU Football) Ready For Fresh Start"
Worcester, MA --- After the way last season ended, the Worcester State football team doesn't need much motivation to kick into high gear in 2013. Injuries wore down the Lancers, who lost three of their last four games in a 6-4 season.
Chartercom TV3 Covers Worcester State Football
Worcester, MA --- After the way last season ended, the Worcester State football team doesn't need much motivation to kick into high gear in 2013. Injuries wore down the Lancers, who lost three of their last four games in a 6-4 season. But in the finale, Framingham State hung a 65-21 collar on Worcester State, leaving a crew salivating with a nasty taste on Chandler Street for the past 10 months.
"It's been kind of a long offseason," junior wide receiver Jack Sprague of Hudson said. "That last game was pretty bad. Framingham's a good team and program, but we could've done a lot better that game."
Again, the Lancers finish this regular season with Framingham State, at home on Nov. 16.
"That sure was a tough way to go last year," said senior wideout AJ Scerra of Marlboro, a team captain. "Framingham's going to be good again this year. You can circle that one on the schedule."
"A game's a game, but that was one of those games you're looking at the clock and saying … ," said coach Brien Cullen, who didn't need to complete that sentence. "They'll be strong again, and we'll be facing Bridgewater State down there on a Friday night (Week 3, Sept. 20). That will give us a good idea about where we are."
And the Lancers will be finding out where they are in a new conference. The MASCAC's six football-playing members, Bridgewater, Fitchburg, Framingham, Mass. Maritime, Westfield and Worcester, have left the New England Football Conference to start a football MASCAC. They've brought Plymouth State and UMass-Dartmouth with them and added Western Connecticut State from the New Jersey Athletic Conference.
The nine-team, one-division MASCAC must play the two-year waiting period without an automatic NCAA Division III playoff berth. That's a factor that had concerned Cullen, but he notes Bridgewater and Framingham both played in the NCAAs last year, strengthening the chance a MASCAC team can secure at least one at-large berth in 2013 and '14.
"I'm going into this with an open mind and see how it goes," Cullen said. "I can understand why it was done. One of the main reasons was to try to get more parity into the conferences because some of the private schools were just taking off in comparison to the state schools as far as commitment, facilities, things like that. We'll see, it was a long time (26 years) in the other conference."
"We don't have to make the Maine Maritime trip anymore, which is good," Scerra said. "That six, six-and-a-half hour drive, stop-and-go traffic, that's not the most fun in the world. I'm looking forward to playing some of these new teams."
Also on the schedule is a November ride to Plymouth State, where one of the few college grass playing surfaces remain. Scerra noted he hasn't played on grass since Thanksgiving 2009, when his Marlboro team faced current WSU teammate Dana Barry's Hudson squad.
Scerra says the grass could slow him some in that game, but he remains an impact player for the Lancers. Last year, he hauled in 85 passes for 958 yards and eight touchdowns as the prime target for quarterback Corey Spencer, while earning D3football.com All-Northeast third-team honors.
This year, a pair of transfers have vied for the starting QB job, with Pat Viencik (Nichols) pushing front-runner Kevin Bumpus (Assumption).
Barry, Sprague and Josh Fortin also will be frequent aerial targets, as will junior tight end Casey Hippert, the former Northbridge High star who was injured much of last season but still has 47 catches for 779 yards and eight TDs over the past two years.
Junior Mike Dance and sophomore DaShawn Taylor of Ayer lead the backfield attack, and they'll be running behind a line featuring senior Kyle Morris, Mac Hanlon (Littleton) and Tim Laramee (Shrewsbury).
Defensive end and captain Bryan Narcisse is another standout from the Lancers' impressive junior class; he had 18.5 of his 67 tackles for losses with 6.5 sacks and earned third-team All-Northeast honors. Junior linebacker and captain Matthew Begley, another of the Lancers' eight returning defensive starters, had three interceptions and three sacks en route to All-NEFC second-team accolades.
Sophomores Brian Gencarelli and Samie Jean are veterans in the secondary, and junior newcomer Mike Goulden and freshman Markiesh Harmon of Leominster could help at cornerback.
"Offensively, we just have to continue what we're doing with our up-tempo, our scoring was pretty good, but we have to get off the field on defense," Cullen said. "We allowed too many points. We have to get that down to 20 points per game. If we get off the field defensively and do what we're capable of doing offensively, we'll be OK."
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