Whalers add another winning year to record book
by Steve Sheppard
In the end, they beat who they were supposed to

beat and, in one memorable contest, a team that

they weren't. By the time the final game took place, they had regenerated such interest that well over a thousand islanders came to watch them play.

All in all, not a bad season for the Nantucket Whalers.

Their improvement from last year was considerable, going from a 1-9 record in 2005 to 6-5 in 2006. They quietly won four games in a row at the end - and five of their last seven - and would have had to put in a perfect game to beat a much larger Vineyard squad. Clearly, the move to the Mayflower small division was a good one. And had they beaten West Bridgewater, in a game that was decided in the final seconds, the Whalers would have won the division title and a possible tenth Super Bowl appearance.

Despite that, Nantucket has much to be proud of, in a season that began with many question marks and that ended with renewed hope for next year.

There were 11 games on the schedule this year, with three of them falling in the big game category. The biggest was not the home finale against the Vineyard (although it was one of the big three) but the October 14 matchup with Mayflower small foe West Bridgewater. The winner was picked to win the division and, as it turned out, that's just what happened, as West Bridgewater will play in this weekend's Division 4 Super Bowl game. The meeting with the Wildcats came at the end of a tough month of road games that featured contests against Mayflower Large opponents Cape Cod Tech - the team that handily dispensed with all of its league rivals - and Bristol-Plymouth. A long road trip to North Shore Tech didn't help, and the Whalers were understandably road weary by the time they faced the Wildcats. A Nantucket touchdown pass attempt in the game's last seconds fell frustratingly incomplete, and the Whalers came up short, 20-16. Rather than deflate the team, however, the loss served to spur it on. The team won its next four games.

The season-ending Vineyard game featured a much improved Whalers squad that by year's end had learned to make the most of its limited numbers. The game was close well into the third quarter, but the Vineyard simply had more manpower. "The only regret I have is our turnovers," Coach Vito Capizzo reflected this week. "We had five against the Vineyard, and they turned the first three into touchdowns."

The game that will be remembered came early, the second game of the season, and it will go down as one of the best in Whalers history. Trailing the defending Super Bowl champion Southeastern Hawks 28-8 late in the third quarter, Nantucket came back to score 34 unanswered points to win by a 42-28 score. Capizzo called it "the greatest comeback in the history of the school." It also snapped an eight-game losing streak for the team. It is the contest by which this gritty team should be measured.

It was also a year that saw Coach Capizzo add to his impressive number of victories, and he now has 290 during his 43 years at the helm. He is the winningest active coach in Massachusetts, and ranks third all-time in state history. Although he will lose 10 players to graduation, he is encouraged by the talent of young players he's seen.

"The Boys and Girls Club and junior varsity both had winning seasons," noted the legendary coach. "There's some talent coming up - if I live that long."

He was kidding, of course. Don't expect him to retire anytime soon. "I'm not going to quit until I beat that snake," he said, referring to Martha's Vineyard head coach Don Herman.

And the rivalry continues ... thank goodness.

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