EASTHAM — Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School’s football team arrived at the Nauset High turf about an hour before the home team showed up last Thursday. By the time Nauset took the field, their opponents seemed totally at home: they’d set up film crews on the sidelines and on top of the announcer’s box to broadcast their game to viewers back in Fall River. Their confidence suggested that they expected an easy victory.
The game ended in an impressive 42-28 win for Diman, thanks in large part to a series of devastating interceptions, but Nauset put up a fight. Senior captain Isaiah Robinson, usually a wide receiver, ran the ball into the end zone twice early in the game, both times playing out of his regular position.
Robinson was humble about his performance. “I just got the ball and made some plays,” he said. The main reason for the change in position was because two of the team’s stars — senior running back Joe Berardi and junior quarterback Brendan Peno — were out with injuries. “They just had to get the ball to me in different ways,” Robinson said.
“It brought me back to my freshman year,” said the senior, recalling his first weeks on the football team, when he played as a running back. He switched to wide receiver halfway through that first season, and he’s held the position ever since — but last week’s game made him nostalgic.
Robinson’s play won him league all-star honors last year, and Coach Jesse Peno thinks he’ll probably get that award again this year. “If that’s what they want to give me, I’m happy to accept it,” Robinson said. “It’s an honor, but I’m really just trying to be out here helping my team.”
Robinson is an example of the Warriors punching above their weight, whether it’s by playing out of position or challenging powerful opponents. The Diman team is from a school with about twice as many students as Nauset — putting them in Division 2 with Barnstable and Marshfield. But being an underdog isn’t a problem for the Warriors: in fact, it’s a situation that Nauset coaches actively seek out.
Boys varsity soccer coach John McCully, recently elected to the Mass. Soccer Coaches Hall of Fame, said that he tries to match his team against schools that will provide stiff competition. It’s one of the most effective ways to prepare players for the postseason tournament — and if they don’t qualify, it’s a good way to make sure underclassmen will be ready next season. This year, 8 of McCully’s 22 players are seniors. “The future for Nauset boys soccer is strong,” McCully said.
Both the boys and girls soccer teams qualified for the postseason tournament. The boys finished their regular season 9-6-3 but suffered a 7-game streak without a win from Oct. 7 to Oct. 26. The girls, meanwhile, finished 13-3-2, winning the Cape & Islands Atlantic Division title against Barnstable (1-16-0), Falmouth (10-7-1), and Martha’s Vineyard (10-6-0). Both teams lost in the second game in their respective state tournaments.
For the girls, the postseason started with a 2-0 win against Ursuline (8-5-5) on Nov. 3 but ended less than 48 hours later with a 0-5 loss to Nipmuc (16-1-1), which finished the regular season ranked fourth in its division. “I’m really pleased with how much we grew,” coach Evan Botting said. “I don’t know how many people would have looked at us last year, losing seven senior starters, and thought we’d do this well.”
The boys, meanwhile, won their first postseason game 2-1 against Tantasqua (11-4-3) but then lost 1-3 to Pope Francis Preparatory School in Springfield (15-0-3), the number-one seed in the bracket. “To be honest, that game was a lot closer than the score was,” McCully said. “We think our schedule prepared us for that moment. Not many other teams do that.”
High school football is stricter than other sports when it comes to qualifying for the postseason tournament. Whereas the soccer, golf, and field hockey teams have to win or tie half their games, only the top 16 football teams in each division make it to the state tournament. Nauset finished at number 21 out of the 39 teams in Division 4 — “the numbers didn’t quite go our way,” Coach Peno said.
But he’s not disappointed in his team, which has a 6-3 season record thus far, including wins over Nantucket, Falmouth, Blue Hills Regional, and Wareham. “They played as hard as they could for as long as they could,” he said. “It’s hard when we’re missing so many guys.” The team plays at Martha’s Vineyard on Nov. 15.
For the Warriors, the biggest contest is still to come. It’s the annual Thanksgiving game against Dennis-Yarmouth, which finished 11th in Division 6 with a season record of 6-2. “They’re really good this year,” Peno said. “We’re looking forward to a good matchup.”
The Thanksgiving game might be Robinson’s last on the Nauset football team, but he plans to keep pushing himself at college. Next year he’ll be at Amherst, where he’s already committed to the track team. He says he plans to “walk on to the football team” during his sophomore year.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on Nov. 14, incorrectly reported the score of the boys soccer team’s final game against Pope Francis Prep. The score was 1-3, not 0-3.
