Football Sachems fall to Gloucester as defensive struggles continue

By Dom Nicastro

The Saugus High School football team suffered its fourth straight loss on Friday night, Oct. 18, falling 32-12 to Gloucester at home. Despite some promising offensive drives and two touchdowns from Ryan Shea, the Sachems were unable to contain Gloucester’s run game, dropping their record to 1-5 on the season.

Gloucester’s star running back Joseph Allen had his way with the Saugus defense, rushing for 293 yards on 18 carries and scoring three touchdowns. Allen broke free for two long touchdown runs of over 70 yards, exploiting gaps in the Sachems’ defense.

“They hit us on the edge a little bit,” said Saugus coach Steve Cummings. “Number 21 [Allen] had two really long runs, and when you break those big plays, it’s going to help your cause on the stat sheet. He’s a good back, and they blocked things up really well. We were just a little bit slow on a couple of reads, and they exploited some gaps early.”

The Sachems moved the ball well on offense but struggled to finish drives. Outside of their scores, three times Saugus advanced into the Gloucester red zone, but the Sachems failed to convert any of those chances into points.

The team’s two scores came from senior Ryan Shea, who had a 10-yard touchdown run on a jet sweep and a 25-yard touchdown catch from freshman quarterback Eli Fialho.

“We moved the ball well at times, but when you get into the red zone and take a sack, you’re suddenly second-and-18 from the 25-yard line, and that’s tough to recover from,” Cummings said. “We’ve got to make sure those drives end in points, not with fourth-down turnovers.”

The Sachems punted only once in the game, highlighting their ability to move the ball between the 20s. However, mistakes in critical moments, including sacks and penalties, derailed key drives.

“We’re young in certain spots, and we’re learning from it,” Cummings added. “But we’re getting better. The ball moved, and we had chances, but we’ve just got to get a little tighter on certain aspects of the game and try to build and get better for Friday.”

On the defensive side, Saugus struggled to stop Gloucester’s Wing-T offense. The Sachems gave up multiple big plays, with Allen leading the charge for the Fishermen. Cummings acknowledged the difficulty of defending against such a unique offensive scheme.

“Wing-T is hard to stop when you don’t run it yourself,” Cummings said. “It’s the speed and crispness of how they run it. We struggled with Winthrop, too, who also runs a Wing-T, so that’s something we’ve got to keep working on.”

Looking ahead, Saugus faces a tough challenge Friday night, Oct. 25, when they travel to face Swampscott (4-2), which currently sits in first place in the Northeastern Conference. “Swampscott is on pace to win our league,” Cummings said. “They’ve already beaten Winthrop and Gloucester, so we know it’s going to be tough. They run more of a spread offense, which presents its own challenges. Their screen game is second to none, and they’ve got really good athletes on the perimeter. We’ll need to tighten up some aspects of our game and be ready for the challenge.”

The game against Swampscott will kick off at 7 p.m. on the road, with Saugus hoping to snap their losing streak before closing out the regular season at Chelsea the following week.