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Lincoln Warriors enjoy flag football tourney |
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Wednesday, 04 November 2009 |
FOXBORO -- Lincoln’s team enjoyed a wonderful day of friendship and competition on Sunday at the New England Special Olympics Flag Football Championship tournament held at Gillette Stadium.
Head coach Mike Leech offered his thoughts on the day.
“We checked in with Megan Hoffman from Special Olympics Massachusetts and had a coaches meeting with all the other coaches that were there with their teams for the competition.
Teams from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachussetts were there. We started off the morning with Opening Ceremonies and we met the King Phillips Academy coaches, players, cheerleaders and families that helped put this event on as well as Andre Tippett and staff from the New England Patriots organization and some Alumni Players and Cheerleaders.
We ran through helmets in the end zone on our way to stations of football skills demonstrations and competed in the Punt Pass Kick and Run competitions while the cheerleaders went to a clinic to hone their sport skills.
We saw the New England Patriots cheerleaders perform a few routines and the Special Olympics team had a chance to strut their stuff. A Cheerleading squad from North Kingstown competed in this event and they had 3 athletes in the Punt Pass Kick and Run Competition as well.
We moved off the field at Gillette and went around back to the Dana Farber Field House and played in 2 Unified 5 on 5 Flag Football games. The competition was as ready for us as we for them. It quickly went from a patient game of toss right, motion away and dive plays to a long ball competition.
New England Patriots Defensive Coordinator Dean Pees was on our sidelines to help coach up the D. In the 2nd half he switched over to the other side and tightened their secondary up a little bit for them. Our first of the two contest were against the Whitney Wizards, a very fast and physical team that was always looking to test our safeties over the top.
Our second game was against the Latham Hawks.
We can't give away the secrets of our defense as we are already hearing from other teams in Rhode Island that are planing on putting together Unified Flag Football teams like Woonsocket and North Kingstown.
LHS underclassmen Anthony Palombo, Kyle Jackson and Asjed Hussain have volunteered to play for the Unified squad next season. Graduating seniors Anthony Joyce, Billy Tower and Scott Leech haven't committed until they see where they'll be next year.
All of the athletes are up for another year. Jason Lesage, Steve Leech, Spencer Moulton, Casey Mercer, and Lemar "No. 81" Munford have already hung up the cleats and are working on their indoor basketball game for SORI's upcoming Unified basketball season.
But, we may be losing our experienced QB Mike Desroisers to Woonsocket Wolverines Special Olympics Program. He was on loan to us for this Tournament in exchange for the knowledge he can bring back home to help ramp up the competition around the state.
All I can say is it was a day when everything worked. On offense we were led by the strong arm and quick feet of Mike Desroisers. He had no favorite targets as he hit everyone with laser sharp strikes. He even completed a 40-yard touchdown strike to Billy Tower that was called in the huddle and perfectly feathered in over the right shoulder to celebrate Billy's birthday.
I think the thing that we all took away from this weekend was the spirit of competition. These games were played all out with full speed full intensity by everyone. The team bonded very well during the preseason and practice days we spent together.
We met for a tailgating and team send-off party Saturday after and watched some LHS game film from the previous night's tilt in Coventry. We all agreed that we were playing the games to win and they promised each other to go all out on every play.
They quickly adapted to every challenge thrown at them during the competitions and were very supportive of each other and respectful of their opponents. The crowd loved the team uniforms that were topped off with red "Warrior" pull over caps, a game day good luck gift from Anthony Palombo and his family to his new teammates.” --- Coach Mike Leech
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 12 November 2009 )
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