CMass Football Preview: The 2014 St. Peter-Marian Guardians

SPM junior quarterback Seamus Leary will lead a re-tooled Guardian attack.

By Mike Uva (@mike_uva)

The St. Peter Marian Guardians have unfinished business heading into the 2014 season after finishing 8-3 a year ago, with two of those games decided by a point a piece.

Despite graduating a plethora of seniors, SPM players echoed the same message that the expectations this season are higher than they’ve ever been. Here’s a look what to expect from the Guardians in 2014.


Offense

Graduating Tyis Boykin, who’s now playing down the road at Assumption College, and leading receiver Dan Henrickson, SPM will look to the arm of junior quarterback Seamus Leary to lead the offense. At 6-foot-2 195 lbs, Leary’s size and arm have attracted several FBS schools, receiving invitations to attend Nike Elite Camps at Ohio State and MetLife Stadium. Despite the attention, Leary turned his attention to his teammates, focusing on a young group of receivers.

“We graduated a lot of guys last year but we also return a lot of young talent that know body knows about,” Leary said. “There’s a couple guys that transferred in and should do a good job for us. Overall, there’s high expectations around here, much higher than many [outsiders] are thinking.”

Some of those players include brother Pat Leary, Rob Foisy, Matt McGovern and Ryan Carey. Carey, a standout goalie in hockey, returns to SPM after leaving to play hockey at Northfield Mount Herman (NMH). Unfortunately, NMH cut their football program a year ago leaving Carey to make a difficult decision to transfer back to SPM.

 “At first it was discouraging knowing [NMH] dropped the football program,” explained Carey. “But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise and I’m really blessed that coach (Tom) Henrickson took me back in.”

In addition to wide receiver, the Guardians’ singleback offense will feature junior running back Anthony Baldino, who Leary said is a “physical back and runs hard.”  

Defense

Defensively, senior Tyler Mulhearn will be looked upon to lead the Guardians’ young defense, as SPM graduated nine of their 11 starters from a year ago. The two-way starter made it a point of emphasis that in order to be successful, SPM needs to be fundamentally sound.

“We need to focus on the little things a lot this year,” explained Mulhearn, who will play both defensive and offensive line. “We can’t afford to have mental mistakes this year, especially on defense so that we can help the offense as much as we can. It comes down to playing physical mistake free football and that’s what we have to do.” 

Schematically, SPM’s defense will change on a weekly basis but will be a base 4-3 team. Players to keep an eye on, on defense include Alec Simonovitch, Jonathan Gonzalez and Nick St. Germain.

Outlook

SPM is a young but hungry team that can’t afford to make dumb penalties and will rely on younger players to step up in order to compete against teams such as Doherty and Shepherd Hill. They haven’t forgotten what happened versus Doherty last year, and seeing the Highlanders go on to win the Division 4 State title motivates them even more. 

“They had a real good team last season and although we lost it should us that we can compete with not only them but anybody,” explained Leary. “It’s exciting to have the chance to not only play them in the regular season but also a lot of teams good teams that have the talent to make a run at the title.”