With the first day of practice right around on the corner on August 23, the Norwood High football team has been sharpening its skills at the MetroWest Passing League at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood with the hope that the extra work will help the Mustangs turn things around after a difficult 3-8 season.
Passing leagues are basically a two-hand touch contest where every play is a pass with seven players on each side. Teams are awarded points for both touchdowns and interceptions.
The disappointing end to last year, which culminated with a loss to rival Dedham on Thanksgiving, resulted in the end of Joe Curran’s tenure as head coach. John Sarianides, who was the team’s offensive coordinator in 2006 and King Philip’s offensive coordinator last year, takes over to try to right the ship.
“It’s been pretty good. We’ve done a lot of conditioning in the morning and throughout the summer,” said senior wide receiver/defensive back A.J. Cignarella of the off-season program put in by Sarianides. “He’s working us pretty hard. Last year we didn’t do too hot. So he’s trying to get us to do better than that, get a better mentality than we had last year.”
As far as the passing league is concerned, Norwood struggled a bit at first, as the competition at Xaverian is high with the likes of the host school, BC High, Walpole and Mansfield also taking part.
“When we started, it was pretty rough, I thought,” said junior receiver/defensive back Brendan Cathcart. “But now that we’ve all got some games under our belts, we’re starting to do better as a team. We’re starting to read each other and pick each other up, starting to bond.”
And that’s more of what teams are trying to get out of a passing league. The results of the games ultimately don’t matter. It’s how much the players learn to play together.
“You get a lot of chemistry out of it,” said senior quarterback Kyle Postler. “We learn how the receivers run their routes and all that.”
So far, the participation at the passing league has been adequate, according to Cathcart.
“It’s been pretty good,” he said. “There’s usually been like 30 kids there. People have vacation and whatnot, so sometimes there’s not as many kids there as there should be. But there’s a lot of kids there.”
Another benefit of the passing league is getting a chance to see Walpole and Natick close up, two teams that Norwood will see during the season.
“It’s just good to see what kind of talent they have and what they like to run,” said Cathcart. “We were in Westwood Passing League last year and we didn’t play as many teams that we play here that we play in the actual season. I like this one better. You get to feel out the other teams.”
“Makes me want to work harder as an individual and hopefully makes everyone else want to work harder, because they’re two very good teams,” said Cignarella. “We want to be up there right with them. So, hopefully it pushes us to be the same level as them.”
At this point, Norwood still has a lot more questions than answers about the upcoming season and whether or not it can improve on last year’s win total. But Cathcart said the new coaching staff is committed to making that happen.
“There’s a lot more spirit going on,” he said. “Everyone’s more into it and there’s more numbers. The coaching staff seems to want to win really bad, get back to the winning ways.”
