Costly mistakes hurt Tech in loss to Greater Lowell - Itemlive - Daily Item

Lynn Tech quarterback Luis Pineiro scrambles on a quarterback-keeper. (Spenser R. Hasak)

LYNN — A string of offensive struggles doomed the Tech football team in a 17-0 loss to Greater Lowell at Manning Field Friday night. Tech’s defense helped keep things close late into the third quarter, but a few turnovers and some mental mistakes allowed the Gryphons offense to add points.

“First off, I just want to give respect to Greater Lowell,” Tech coach James Runner said. “They did a great job getting ready for a great football game. This was a conference playoff game no matter how you look at it. Their kicker was amazing but we gave them 14 points.”

A pair of fumbles allowed Greater Lowell to take a 3-0 lead early on. Later in the second half, any positive plays from Tech were negated by penalties.

“The biggest thing that hurt us was anytime we got something that was positive we had to bring it back because of something that was mentally done wrong,” Runner said. “The mental toughness of Lynn Tech, that’s what we work on more than anything. You have to treat a conference opponent like they’re the best team in the world. I give a lot of credit to Greater Lowell.”

The Tigers totaled just 28 yards of offense, with a handful of negative plays throughout the night.

“I think the biggest thing that hurt our offense was we had a young quarterback (Luis Pineiro),” Runner said. “The lights were on him, but he made some great passes when we needed him to. That’s something that we’re going to echo when we get in the film room.”

The Tigers got off to a promising start when Pineiro, at safety, intercepted a pass over the middle on the second play from scrimmage, but Tech failed to capitalize.

From there, turnovers haunted the Tigers. A fumble on a punt return put Greater Lowell in great field position and it capitalized with a 35-yard field goal from Cole Blades to go ahead 3-0.

The Gryphons marched into field-goal range again at the end of the half, but defensive back Victor Bellamah blocked Blades’ field goal to keep the score at 3-0 going into the break.

Penalties hurt any chance the Tigers had of moving the ball in the second half.

“At one point, we had a 2nd-and-1 at our 32-yard-line and we got a personal foul to make it 2nd-and-16,” Runner said. “At the end of the day we hands down shot ourselves in the foot. Us coaches, we’re going to go right back to what we’ve been doing and get ourselves better.”

The Tigers’ defense finally started to wear down late in the third quarter when Kyle Proulx connected with Benji Hatch on a screen pass that went 42 yards for a touchdown to put Greater Lowell ahead 10-0.

The Gryphons capped the scoring later in the fourth quarter with a 1-yard touchdown run from Proulx to go ahead 17-0.

Tech will hope to rebound next Friday night at Nashoba Valley Tech (7).

“We did a great job in that first half,” Runner said. “Our defense is stout. (Greater Lowell) is out of our (CAC Small) division so it won’t go against us too much. We don’t need to over think it but next week against Nashoba, they’re going to run the same gameplan. I wouldn’t doubt that for one second.”