D-Y keeps on rolling in ACL

The night before high school students around Massachusetts were scheduled to take the SAT exam, D-Y passed its first test with grade “A” results.

Playing in front of the home crowd and several members of the inaugural D-Y football team of 1957, the Dolphins scored 21 unanswered points in the second half en route to a 35-21 victory over Atlantic Coast League-rival Plymouth South.

“We made a couple of adjustments on the defensive line and changed some assignments and it made a big difference," said coach Paul Funk. "We held them to 60 yards rushing in the second half and they didn’t score. They are a good team and that was a real good win for our program. You have to compete with the big schools in the league, the top schools year in and year out. It was great and those guys [from the 1957 team] were ecstatic. When you win and everything goes as planned, you cant complain.”

D-Y never led in the first half and trailed at the break, 21-14, in need of a spark.

“We were trying to keep the pace up-tempo,” said Funk. “We were going no huddle and getting as many plays in as we could. That’s what we want to do each game. They were just huge up front and pushed us around pretty good in the first half.”

The second half was all Dolphins. Joe Jamiel (102 yards, 3 TDs) ran for a touchdown in the third and fourth quarters, giving him three on the day and QB Nick Montalto (106 yards passing and 1 TD, 81 yards rushing) also ran for a 40-yard score in the third.

Montalto, who threw a TD pass in the first half, now has six on the season. Jamiel, who leads Division 1A with 11 touchdowns and 70 total points scored, has found the end zone at least once every game and has now scored three touchdowns in three different games this season. The duo combined for 289 total yards of offense on Friday night.

“We stopped ourselves twice, once in the first half and once in second,” said Funk. “We only punted once in the whole game. Offensively, we felt like we were fine, we were moving the ball.

Defensively, Funk credited senior outside linebacker Anthony Passalugo for a fine effort, especially in the crucial second half.

“He had three sacks and nine tackles and that was huge because two of the sacks were in the second half on second-and-longs that turned into third-and-longs. He shut down one side of the field.”

The win came in a game which Joe Jamiel called had called “the make-or-break week” and was particularly important because, although D-Y came into Friday’s ACL matchup at 4-0, P-S was undoubtedly the toughest test of the season. D-Y had been 1-6 against the ACL’s big three (Plymouth South, Plymouth North and Marshfield) over the past three seasons. The lone victory was against South in 2004-05 and D-Y was able to build on that past success.

D-Y remains one of four undefeated Division 1A teams, including No. 4 Billerica, No. 10 Weymouth and No. 11 Marshfield. As of the latest Boston.com Top 100, D-Y was ranked at 55. Plymouth South was slotted at 42. It will be difficult for the Dolphins to make a significant jump
until Nov. 9 when they will have a shot at Marshfield. There’s plenty of football to be played until then, but D-Y is looking like a team that could go undefeated to that point. The Dolphins already have more wins than each of the previous three years.

Next up for D-Y is a visit to North Quincy (3-2), which had its three game winning streak halted at Plymouth North in a 28-0 shutout loss this weekend.

“Every game is going to be tough from here on in,” said Funk. “It’s going to be a dogfight all the way to the end. There are no free passes in the ACL.”