This time of year, senior athletes are consumed with two things: their team's season, and their SATs.
Interestingly, more and more local athletes are having to decide whether or not to skip all or part of a game to take the standardized test.
North Reading senior quad-captain Dino Rizzo confronted that dilemma head on last Saturday as did North Andover's Alex Kramer, an Eagle-Tribune All-Star in cross country.
Kramer missed the Bay State Invitational while Rizzo was late to his football game.
"I found out halfway through the test that my extra time that I get because of a learning disability would run into the start of the game," said Rizzo, a star linebacker/running back. "I had to leave the test room, talk to the SAT people, go down to the office, and call Coach. It was really sprung on me at the last minute."
North Reading's sixth-year head coach Jeff Wall was similarly surprised.
"All I was told was the names of the kids taking the test. In Dino's case, he gets extended time, and we were not aware of that initially. I thought Dino would be on time and we'd all be able to leave together," Wall said.
The 2007 All-CAL honorable mention performer missed the entire first half of previously unbeaten North Reading's 25-12 loss at Austin Prep, a game that started at 2 p.m. With four other seniors taking the SATs, Wall was forced to keep the team buses from departing for Austin Prep until they finished at the usual time of 12:30 p.m.
"Even with my senior teammates getting out at the regular time, the team only had three or four minutes to warm up once they got there," said the 6-1, 195-pound Rizzo.
Rizzo, who enlisted the help of a tutor over the summer in an attempt to better his scores, is being recruited by several schools including Bentley College, who'd like to see him score an 1,100 combined on his math and verbal sections.
"Dino's really come a long way. He struggled early on as a freshman and sophomore," said Wall, "but he's gotten more serious about how he wants to turn out and has had the biggest turnaround over the last four years in terms of his commitment to us and to his academics."
Rizzo trusted his teammates to understand the difficult position he was in.
"I was disappointed to miss the start of the game, but they all understood because it was a last-second thing. I came in and did as much as I could."
Upon arriving, Rizzo had a noticeable impact. He sacked Austin Prep's Ryan Havey on his second play in the game. According to Wall, the team's morale was lifted as soon as Rizzo stepped foot on the field.
"It made such a huge difference in the overall attitude of the team. You could just sense that the kids really believed they could do it once he showed up," said Wall. "You could even see some kids looking over the hill just waiting for him to get there. He brings a different attitude to the defense, a toughness, and we kind of lost that."
The big question, of course, is whether the outcome would have been any different had Rizzo been able to play the whole game.
While both Wall and Rizzo were adamant about not detracting from Austin Prep's performance, Rizzo, for one, feels he could have kept his team from falling into an 11-0 first-half deficit.
"In my opinion, I think the game would have been much different with me there the whole time,'' said Rizzo, who has scored five TDs in the four games this year. "I would have shut down the run to my side. When I was in there, they couldn't move the ball on my side at all. Offensively, we couldn't get the ball moving much on the ground in the second half, but I did pretty well when I went in and broke off a 73-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. That really jacked us up."
When asked about a possible solution, Wall said, "I would have liked to have moved our game to Friday afternoon and played it right after school. The game would have been over, the kids would have had two days off from practice, and they wouldn't have to worry about the game while taking the test.
"When I took the SATs, we played our championship game the same day. We came out flat and were unfocused all game. It lends itself to being sloppy. It's one of those unfortunate things, but it won't happen to me or this team again."
Weekend Schedule
Today
Tewksbury at Andover....................7 p.m.
Lowell at Central Catholic..............7 p.m.
Greater Lawrence at Northeast.....7 p.m.
Haverhill at Billerica..................7 p.m.
Londonderry at Manchester Central.......7 p.m.
Pentucket at Ipswich...........7 p.m.
Whittier at Chelsea............7 p.m.
Lawrence at Masconomet.........7 p.m.
Chelmsford at Methuen...................7 p.m.
Pelham at Bishop Brady..................7 p.m.
Medford at North Andover................7 p.m.
Saturday
Triton at North Reading.......11 a.m.
Concord at Pinkerton ..........1 p.m.
Amesbury at Georgetown..................1 p.m.
Hollis-Brookline at Sanborn..........1:30 p.m.
Timberlane at Salem ...............2 p.m.
Brooks at Governor's Academy........ 2:30 p.m.
Cushing Academy at Phillips Academy..6:30 p.m.
