Whalers rebound and win against North Shore Tech
Team begins league play this weekend
Sometimes road trips are worth the hassle. Just ask the Whalers, whose two hour bus excursion beyond Boston on Saturday turned out to be a joy ride as they shook off the agonies of consecutive shutout defeats to outlast North Shore Tech, 38-30.

Quarterback Geddes Paulsen led the Whalers' team effort Saturday against North Shore Tech.

For the last two weeks coach Vito Capizzo had been lamenting the lack of teamwork that he felt was the main culprit behind the two previous losses. Evidently his team got the message Saturday afternoon as it held off a persistent opponent to come back again and again in a total team effort. Leading the charge was quarterback Geddes Paulsen, who was directly involved in four of the five Whaler touchdowns, passing for two and rushing for two more. When it was over, he had thrown for 297 yards on the afternoon.

From the outset, the game was a back and forth affair. North Shore broke the ice with a field goal. The Whalers, who hadn't scored in eight quarters, came right back with a 68-yard pass play from Paulsen to Mark Dwyer for a touchdown and the early lead. The conversion pass to Andriques Farmer was good, and it was 8-3 Whalers.

North Shore, however, was not to be denied in the early going, as the ensuing kickoff was returned 85 yards into the endzone. The extra point made it 10-8 in favor of the home team.

Things would get worse before they got better. Early in the second quarter, North Shore again ran for a touchdown but Nantucket held firm and blocked the extra point attempt.

Building on that success, the Whalers marched downfield to the one yard line, where Paulsen took it in for the first of his two rushing touchdowns. The conversion pass to Delroy Lawrence was good and the score was knotted at 16.

Nantucket added to the total after Paulsen ran to the 20 yard line on a quarterback sneak. From there he found Lawrence in the end zone, who made a great grab going up over two defenders to cap the drive. Lawrence then scooped up a low conversion toss from Paulsen and the Whalers had the lead for the second time in the contest, 24-16.

North Shore immediately answered with a 65- yard touchdown pass play and a successful conversion to tie the score again before the half. With three lead changes in the first half, the question at the start of the second half was which team would grab the momentum in this see-saw contest?

The early results favored Nantucket, as Paulsen scored his second rushing touchdown on an 11-yard run for a 30-24 advantage. North Shore rode the pendulum to a matching touchdown for yet another tie. Whew!

But as they did against Southeastern in their first victory of the season, the Whalers dug in. When Dwyer made it into the endzone from the four yard line, and the conversion pass from Paulsen to Lawrence was good, Nantucket regained the lead for good. The 38-30 score held up, the Whalers had their second win of the year and the long ride home was indeed a pleasure trip.

Between the lines . . . The victory doubled last year's win total. . . . Nantucket had 22 first downs to North Shore Tech's 13. North Shore amassed 172 yards rushing to Nantucket's 142. . . . Besides the solid contributions of Paulsen, Dwyer and Lawrence, Tomas Smaliorius had 3 catches for 41 yards. . . . It was a long day, indeed. Because of iffy weather, Nantucket took the 6:30 a.m. boat to Hyannis. . . . The Whalers complete their monthlong road schedule Saturday at West Bridgewater. Last year, Nantucket defeated the Wildcats 36-27, for its lone win. WB is a much improved team this year, however. It will be the first true league game for Nantucket, competing in the Mayflower 'small' division this year.

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