Patriots hope to end losing streak and finish the season on a high note

Revere head football coach Lou Cicatelli said this week that his players aren’t looking back at the missed opportunities of their 3-7 season. Rather, the Revere Patriots are focused on the things that went right this season.

Revere had its first 3-0 start to a season in more than 20 years. The running back tandem of seniors Trae Weathers and Quentin Wesley amassed thousands of yards and provided the spark to an offense that scored against nearly every team, they faced.

Senior quarterback Paul Norton grew into a leader on offense and seamlessly orchestrated the team’s game plans each week and Revere carved an identity for itself that they would fight hard in every game, until the final whistle.

Now, with the last game of their high school football careers before them, Norton, Wesley and Weathers, have committed themselves this week to putting to rest the school’s current Thanksgiving Day losing streak.

“It’s been a long time since Revere has beaten Winthrop on Thanksgiving Day, but we’ve had a good week of practice and the kids are ready for the challenge,” promised Cicatelli. “We expect a very good high school football game and we know that the winner of this game can end their season feeling pretty good about themselves.”

“No matter what the record is at the end of the season, if we beat Winthrop, we feel like we’ve done something to be proud of and we can take that momentum into next year,” added the coach.

On the season, Weathers scored 167 total points for the Patriots, and Wesley, who missed part of the season with an injury added 40 more.

“Trae, Quintin and Paul (Norton), we’re going to mix it up with the three of them,” said Cicatelli. “They’re all going to touch the ball a lot, we’re going to try and establish our running game and them use our play-action, and we’re going to control the line of scrimmage.”

Cicatelli noted the team had an excellent week of practice preparing for the final game of the season.

“They’re focused, they’re ready. They know its been a long time since we beat them and they feel like the season will be a success if we can win this one,” he said. “The record may only say 4-7 at the end, but if one of the four is Winthrop, well that will feel good.”

In addition to the three wins they did post, one more than Winthrop managed on the season, the patriots also had a pair of one-point last second losses against Swampscott and Marblehead in mid-season, just before the conference schedule began.

“In a lot of ways, I feel like those two losses took the wind out of their sails a bit,” said Cicatelli. “Going into that stretch we’d won our first three games and the kids felt good about themselves, after that it got a little more difficult. Not that they packed it in, they didn’t, they fought hard and I’m proud of how they played this season. It’s just that if we could’ve hung on to those two games and had five wins, who knows what might have happened going into the league schedule.”

All those “what-ifs” can be laid to rest on Thursday with a win at home against their arch rival Winthrop.

Joining Weathers, Wesley and Norton in playing their final games in a Revere uniform will be seniors Jose Amaya, Gershon Ayala, Kenny Ayo, Bill Nutt and Alexis Pardo.