By ERIC BENEVIDES

Sports writer

By BRENDAN McGAIR

Sports writer

By ERIC BENEVIDES

Sports writer

KINGSTON --- The ‘team of the decade’ will face the team with the longest win streak in the state for the Division I state championship on Saturday. 
East Providence High earned the right to pursue its seventh state title since 2000 and eighth in its marvelous history on Tuesday night by sweating out a tougher-than-it-looks 3-0 semifinal-round win over North Kingstown High at the University of Rhode Island’s Keaney Gymnasium.
Senior co-captain and outside hitter Amanda Cabral had 10 kills and 10 digs to lead the attack for the Division I-North champion Townies in their 25-18, 25-22, 25-21 victory, their 17th in a row and 19th in 20 matches.
The Townies’ lone loss came on Sept. 8 in the form of a 3-0 setback (25-15, 25-15, 25-18) at home to the Prout School, and that’s who they will face in Saturday’s 5 p.m. showdown back at URI. It will be E.P.’s eighth trip to the finals in the last 11 seasons.
The Division I-South champion Crusaders, who beat two-time state champ La Salle Academy in their semifinal-round affair, are 19-0 and enter the duel with an astounding 45-match win streak that dates back to 2007.    
Of course, this is the Crusaders’ first year in the Division I ranks. They won the last three Division II championships (and two of the past three Division III titles before that) and have lost just once in the last five seasons.
“We got to play smart, we got to serve tough, and we got to play defense, and when the opportunities are there, we got to capitalize offensively,” said E.P. coach Alex Butler. “Our game is built on serving and defense, and that’s what we need going forward into Saturday.
“We’re not going to change. We won’t morph and change into another team. We are who we are and we’re going to put our best out there for Saturday.”
There were moments throughout the match that the Townies didn’t put their best out there against the Skippers, who are 14-6 and were seeking their first state title in three years, and Butler noted that in his post-match remarks.
“I wasn’t happy with our consistency,” said the third-year coach. “I thought we left a lot of plays out there on the floor and things that we’ve been trying to address in practice and harping on what we need to clean up.
“If you want to win a championship, you can’t leave too many points out on the floor. We were able to get away with it tonight, but we won’t be able to get away with it on Saturday.”
The Townies tried to make quick work of the Skippers in the opening game by storming out to an 8-1 lead behind the service of Alexandria Amaral and a pair of kills by Cabral, but the Skippers fought back.
They quickly cut their deficit to 12-7 and trimmed it to as low as two points on two occasions, but the Townies scored nine of the final 14 points to nail down the game.     
The second game was more of a battle and probably the Townies’ worst set of the night. They held leads of 11-7, 17-13, and 21-15, only to watch their opponent battle back to slice their deficit to a single point.
The Skippers eventually tied the contest at 22-22, but the Townies escaped with the win by netting the final three points.   
“I thought our passing overall was pretty solid tonight and our service was good, but for a couple of stretches, we went to sleep for a little while,” said Butler. “In that game, we were tipping balls in the net and hitting balls out of bounds and that kind of led to part of my frustration.”
The Skippers again made life tougher for the Townies in the third game by erasing a quick 5-1 lead and rolling to their biggest lead of the night, 13-9.
Down 14-11, the Townies rallied for six straight points to reclaim the lead, but the Skippers soon knotted the score, and for the next few minutes, both teams battled for the lead.
The Townies eventually claimed a 22-19 lead behind the service of Jessica Amaral, and after the Skippers notched the next two points, E.P. ended the suspense and the match by grabbing the final three points on a dink and an ace by Cabral and a block by Morganne Booker.
In addition to Cabral’s outstanding effort, Alexandria Amaral, a sophomore setter, was also solid in dishing out 19 assists and adding nine digs. Jessica Amaral, a senior libero, was superb defensively with 19 digs, and Booker, a senior middle hitter, had four kills.    

By TERRY NAU

Sports editor

Never underestimate the ability of television to blow a skirmish at the end of a championship soccer game out of proportion.
That’s what happened on Sunday night when two players from Tolman and Woonsocket got physical with each other in the final minute of the Division IV girls’ soccer championship game. Because Channel 12’s cameras were still on the scene, viewers were treated to some great footage of the fight, including a punch thrown by Woonsocket’s Kristin Cahill, who then ended up on the ground, being dragged by her ponytail for a few feet until the referees finally arrived on the scene.
Frankly, I’ve seen worse at hockey games when no cameras were around. Football, too. I’m not condoning this kind of behavior, just saying it happens in other sports. What made this incident news is that the TV cameras were rolling and girls were fighting. Channel 12 may stop re-running the footage by the end of the week, if we’re lucky.
Here’s why I say that Channel 12 blew this incident out of proportion. Woonsocket and Tolman have had a terrific rivalry in girls’ soccer for the past three years. Tolman won the Division IV state title in 2007, beating Shea in the finals after the Raiders knocked off regular season champ Woonsocket, which then won the next two titles.
Throughout these three seasons, Kristin Cahill was the best player in the division, the one who was marked heavily by opposing defenses. She led her team in scoring every year (22 goals this season) despite all the physical contact. And finally, in the waning moments of her high school soccer career, she takes exception to one last bit of contact with Tolman’s Maria Lopera and acts irrationally, for one brief moment.
Nobody is proud of the behavior of these two players. We’re just trying to explain it. Grabbing and holding high-scoring players is a fact of life in soccer. It’s also true in hockey.
R.I. Interscholastic League boss Tom Mezzanotte will dole out his penalties for this incident next week. He held a preliminary meeting with officials from the two schools on Tuesday morning and plans to announce the penalties next Monday. That is his right. But I hope his decision won’t be based solely on what he sees in Channel 12’s film. That video only shows one minute of a long season. Let’s try to keep the whole thing in perspective.
***
It seems like running the football is back in vogue this season, at least for several local teams. Woonsocket, East Providence and Lincoln High all turned to the running game as their main vehicle of attack on offense. Woonsocket has rushed for well over 1,800 yards, relying on bruising runners Travis Gagne (1,230 yards thus far on the ground), Jordan Barr and Brian Doire.
East Providence, which has remained committed to the option running game for years under head coach Sandy Gorham, has cut down on turnovers this season and is a legitimate Division I state championship threat.
Lincoln is perhaps the most interesting case. The Lions hit rock-bottom in the middle of the season when they dropped a 22-0 verdict to South Kingstown while throwing five interceptions and fumbling three other times. Since then, coach Dave Waycott seems to have changed his offensive philosophy, to the point where the Lions rushed the ball 55 times for 310 yards last Friday against Cumberland and threw it just three times.
That’s “Old School” football. It will be interesting to see what happens on Saturday when Lincoln brings its running game to Barry Field in Woonsocket for a 1 p.m. playoff game against Woonsocket.
Personally, I think high school football has gotten away from the basics of protecting the football in recent years. Too many teams are running their offenses out of the shotgun formation, which adds one more turnover possibility to the equation.
The Wildcat and the Spread offense work well in the college game, where teams can spend hours and hours practicing the nuances of these formations, but high school squads only have three or four days of practice each week, and that’s not enough time to train players for a high-risk offense.
“We just try to keep it simple,” Woonsocket coach Carnell Henderson has said on a number of occasions this season. “This is high school football. We want our players to use their natural instincts to react, instead of having to think about what they have to do next.”
***
This has been a down season for Pawtucket’s three high school football teams. We’re witnessing one of the basic truths in high school sports. Good athletes and good teams come in cycles. St. Raphael Academy won a Division I state title just two years ago, carving out an unbeaten record in the state’s toughest division, defeating larger schools at every turn, and winning the Super Bowl with its best player (QB Stanley Dunbar) on the sidelines.
Shea High has won two Super Bowls of its own under coach Dino Campopiano and his assistant coaches, riding the talents of young players who overcame size disadvantages by playing hard and fast. Tolman won one Super Bowl on the field with coach Dave Caito and his staff. Every year, it seems like Tolman and Shea were playoff contenders in Division II. Until now.
Coaches at these three schools didn’t get any dumber this year. In fact, now is the time to recognize what a great job the staffs at SRA, Shea and Tolman have done over the past decade. They have made the city of Pawtucket proud. Let’s not forget that as we head into the final two weeks of the season.
Losing teams deserve some respect, too. The players who stick with their teams and finish the job on Thanksgiving Eve can be just as proud of themselves as any of their predecessors who wore the uniform of their high school on the gridiron. Win or lose.