New Hampshire won't face Librizzi in Shrine Game
Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com
New Hampshire coach Ken Sciacca made it clear that many of the selections he made for this year's Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl were based on the possibility that Essex High School's Max Librizzi would be Vermont's starting quarterback, so no one was more surprised than Sciacca to learn that Librizzi wasn't on the Vermont roster.
Librizzi completed 232 of 369 passes for 3,335 yards and 45 touchdowns for Essex last season. He'll join the Holy Cross football program next season.
"We took 12 (defensive backs) because of him," Sciacca said. "We really focused on defensive backs and a pass rush. I heard he was a real good quarterback."
Sciacca, who resigned as Kennett's head coach following the 2009 season, was scheduled to meet with his team for the first time Sunday.
"We only lost one (player) from our initial selections," Sciacca said. "Hopefully we can keep the crew we have.
"We have some outstanding running backs. We're real big in the backfield. We tried to select many of our offensive linemen from the lower divisions. That's worked pretty well when I've coached this game in the past."
New Hampshire will run a Wing-T offense in this year's game. The running backs on this year's roster include Kevin Brady (Inter-Lakes), Michael Cavanaugh (Manchester Central), Derek Furey (Timberlane) and Steven Jellison (Souhegan).
Practice for this year's game will begin on July 29. Both New Hampshire and Vermont will practice at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden. This year's game will be played Aug. 7 at Windsor (Vt.) High School. The opening kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.
New Hampshire stretched its winning streak to nine games by posting a 40-6 victory over Vermont last summer. New Hampshire leads the all-time series 41-13-2.
"We tried to get the best kids we could," Sciacca said.
