ATTLEBORO — The fourth-seeded Bishop Feehan High football team is moving on to the MIAA Division 2 state Elite Eight following its 17-0 takedown of No. 14 North Andover High Friday night to open the playoffs. The win will pit the Shamrocks against No.
5 Wellesley next week, giving the Shamrocks at least one more home playoff game. Wellesley won its first-round playoff game with a 34-0 shelling of Plymouth North. The Shamrocks and Scarlet Knights locked up in a defensive stalemate with only one scoring play in the first half, a 23-yard field goal from Bishop Feehan’s Aidan Neary with 1:25 to go in the second quarter.
Bishop Feehan had a chance to jump on the scoreboard in the first quarter, but a deep Owen Mordas pass to Kaden Baltazar behind coverage fell incomplete. Despite the dearth of scoring in the first half, Shamrocks head coach Bryan Pinabell felt his team put together a good first half on offense and on defense against a shifty North Andover combination of Ben Iglesias and Billy Vincent. “I didn’t feel like we played bad,” Pinabell said.
“The dropped touchdown, that’s a tough one, but I thought we played pretty well defensively after the first series. We had to get into the speed of the game a little bit. (Iglesias) is really quick and we knew it going in, but we hadn’t seen it in practice.
I felt we were in a good position and knew in the second half we’d be able to wear them down.” The Shamrocks finally got their offense going on their first off.