While the Londonderry High football team’s 2017 season didn’t go quite as far along as the folks wearing Lancer gridiron garb would have liked, it’s an irrefutable fact that the LHS contingent was jammed with hard-working and determined talent.
And that fact was borne out recently when no less than 10 Lancers received All-South Conference honors after helping their 2017 squad to a very solid 6-4 campaign.
Senior defensive lineman Pat Zepf and senior wide receiver Connor Dubois were both named first-teamers, as were junior linebacker Ben Psaledas and star sophomore running back Jeff Wiedenfeld.
Notching South Conference Honorable Mention recognition were seniors Shane McEachern (a defensive back) and Jake Dionne (linebacker), as well as juniors Pat Hagearty (defensive lineman), Josh Berube (offensive lineman), and Jack Ogden (linebacker), and sophomore wide receiver Cole Keegan.
Speaking specifically about his talented quartet of all-conference players, Londonderry coach Jimmy Lauzon had no trouble finding words of praise.
Regarding Psaledas, who has done a masterful job of maintaining his family’s long legacy of football success at LHS which still includes his grandfather Butch – a Lancer assistant coach – coach Lauzon said, “Psaledas was very consistent for us on both sides of the ball. He led our team in tackles and was the leading tackler in six games, which is what you want from your linebackers.”
Versatile senior Zepf did vital work at multiple positions for the Lancers, and coach Lauzon said of him, “Zepf was a standout for us. No one had a bigger impact for us, and he did it in three all three phases of the game at kicker and punter, defensive end, and wide receiver. He had 7.5 sacks, five batted balls, and over 40 tackles, he had 16 catches and two touchdowns, and he also punted for an average of 31 yards and made 28 out of 30 extra points.”
Speedy and deceptive running back Wiedenfeld – who like teammate Psaledas has a rich family football tradition to maintain at LHS – wrote a new entry in the Lancer record books by becoming the first Londonderry sophomore to rush for 1,000 yards this fall. Of him, coach Lauzon gushed, “Wiedenfeld was the spark to the run game we’ve been missing for the last couple of years. He’s a workhorse and that’s how we treated him. He ran for 1,070 yards in 10 games with 10 touchdowns as a sophomore. He also played outside linebacker and returned kicks.”
And speaking of Dubois, the LHS coach stated, “He was our big-play guy. He came up with big catches, big returns, and big runs when we needed them. When we played North he came through on a huge kick-return at the end of the game, and at Merrimack he made a big catch to put us in position to score and win. He always stepped up in moments when we needed him to, and that says a lot about him as a player.”
The Lancers began the 2017 season in superb fashion with consecutive wins over Bishop Guertin of Nashua, Timberlane of Plaistow, and Nashua North. Then came a disappointing Mack Plaque loss to those arch-rivals from Pinkerton Academy in Derry, but Londonderry rebounded beautifully with consecutive wins over Keene, Merrimack, and Alvirne of Hudson before falling in their final three games of the fall against Nashua South and Salem twice. The latter Salem loss came in the D-I playoffs.