Growth but no ‘W’: Revere football falls short to Medford

By Dom Nicastro

It was a game of big drives, a huge defensive play and a much-improved defense. Unfortunately for the Revere High School football team, it was still a loss.

The Patriots battled Medford all night but came up short in a 17-14 defeat in their first Greater Boston League game of the season. Revere fell to 0-3 on the young season.

Revere did a lot of things right in this one, playing its best game of the season. But it was a little too much Justin Marino on this night. The Medford quarterback had more than 100 yards rushing, including about a 50-yard run with less than a minute left to set up himself for a game-winning 36-yard field goal with less than 20 seconds to play in the game.

“That’s one of the best football players I’ve seen in a while against us,” Revere Head Coach Lou Cicatelli said of Marino, who earlier in the game had a touchdown.

Marino spoiled a really strong effort from Revere. The Patriots took an 8-0 lead with only seconds remaining in the first quarter on Geovani Woodard’s 2-yard TD run and two-point conversion run.

That touchdown capped off a 99-yard drive that ate all but six seconds of the opening quarter. The drive featured a triple-threat attack of quarterback Danny Hou and running backs Woodard and freshman Reda Atoui. Hou converted on two fourth downs on the drive with runs and connected with Woodard for a key 13-yard pass, Revere’s only of the drive. Atoui carried the ball four times in the drive, three for positive yards.

“The offense … we have some flashes of brilliance, and then some flashes of, you know, penalties and plays going backward,” Cicatelli said. “We’ve got to move on from that. When we move the ball like we did in the first quarter on that 99-yard drive … throw the ball and control the clock, we’ll be in business.”

Defensively, Coach Cicatelli cited Atoui and Yousef Benhamou, who each had seven tackles. Other defensive standouts included Anthony Pelatere, who saved a touchdown, Charles-Divine Dobre and Joel Vasquez.

The defensive play of the night easily came from Atoui. With just a couple of minutes left after a Revere drive stalled inside its own territory, Medford, ahead 14-8, just had to pick up a first down and run out the clock. But on the Mustangs’ first play, Atoui ended up with the ball in his hands from his defensive position — and he took the stripped fumble and ran 73 yards for a touchdown to make it 14-14.

However, the two-point conversion attempt from Woodard failed, and Medford’s Marino took over again. His 50-yard dash set up his game-winning field goal for a 17-14 final.

“It is what it is,” Cicatelli said of the missed conversion. “We thought that our percentages would be a little bit better (going for two).”

To even have that chance was all due to Atoui, the freshman who just simply keeps impressing on each side of the ball.

“He’s a football player,” Cicatelli said. “He’s an all-around football player on offense and defense. He makes things happen. He’s very instinctual.”

Revere takes on Lynn English in another Greater Boston League matchup Thursday, Oct. 3rd at 5:30. The Bulldogs are 3-1, beating Greater Lawrence Tech, 30-19, at home last week.

“They have a good quarterback, real good skill players, some really good receivers and they throw the ball a ton,” Cicatelli said. “It’ll be a hefty matchup for us, but you know it’s the GBL. I think everybody kind of matches up pretty well in the GBL.”