Published in the October 4, 2018 edition

By ANDREW MOUNTER

BYFIELD — The North Reading football Hornets came to Triton Regional High School last Friday night and dominated start to finish, as they won 42-14. The Hornets’ offense scored five touchdowns on their first five drives of the night.

“This is the type of game that helps the kids realize the hard work they have done,” said first year Hornet Head Coach Eddie Blum. “They know to reach some of our goals we have to keep getting better, keep working on the little things and be more consistent on our execution. That kind of stuff is what we will work on throughout the week in practice.”

The scoring for the Green and Gold started on the second play as senior captain and quarterback Matt Solecki found senior wide receiver Mike Mikula by the North Reading sideline on a 56-yard pass and run play. As they have done most of their three prior games, the Hornets used a bit of trickery during the point after attempt, as they used sophomore Robert Tammaro to pass to a wide open sophomore Billy Taylor for the two-point conversion; 8-0 North Reading, exactly a minute into the contest.

CAPTAIN Matt Solecki (7) had a great game from the pocket during Friday night’s victory over Triton. The QB threw for three touchdowns to help stake the Hornets to a 36-0 halftime lead. (Bob Currier Photo)

The next time North Reading got the ball, the drive took a bit longer (seven plays) to get the score but Solecki found wideout Jimmy Currier towards the back end zone. The junior made a nice leaping grab while falling to his back, for the touchdown. The two-point try was again successful as junior Jack Keller got the ball and ran across the goal line. North Reading led 16-0 with 4:12 left in the first quarter.

Their third drive of the ball game started right as the second quarter got under way. On the first play of the quarter, sophomore running back Will O’Leary scampered 85 yards to glory on North Reading’s longest play from scrimmage so far in the season. The extra-point kick attempt just missed the goal posts so it was only 22-0 Green and Gold.

Solecki would get his touchdown hat trick on the next possession, finding O’Leary on a screen pass for a 29-yard score. Tammaro kicked his first extra-point of his high school career to complete the seven-point play to give North Reading a 29-0 lead.

To complete the commanding first half, the Hornets scored a fifth touchdown on sophomore tailback Gregory Demetri’s run of 40 yards. Then something that has been rarely seen during a football game happened as the point after touchdown attempt by Tammaro was blocked by Triton and was picked in the end zone by a Triton defender who tried to get out of the end zone with the ball but fumbled it and then was picked up by Keller for one point for North Reading, to make the game 36-0, Hornets. That was the kind of night Triton had.

The defense for North Reading was just as dominate as they held the Vikings offense to only two first downs in the first half and only gained 62 yards of total offense.

The second half gave way to the second stringers for the Green and Gold and got one touchdown from sophomore backup Brian Heffernan, on a QB sneak from a yard out. Triton would have two touchdowns but even with that, the Hornets now have a plus-51 point differential on the season as they have scored 124 points and only given up 73.

The Green and Gold are now 3-1 on the 2018 season and 1-1 in the Cape Ann League and will be home for the first time since the opening week of the season as they get ready for a Pentucket team who is also 3-1 going into tomorrow night’s 7 p.m. kickoff at Arthur J. Kenney Field. Pentucket is coming off a bye week as last week’s  scheduled game with Masconomet was cancelled. Masco did not field a team and forfeited the game due to an undisclosed student discipline matter.