Matt Triveri steers Mashpee to Super season

When he wasn't preparing his team for Saturday's Eastern Massachusetts Division 4 Super Bowl in Foxboro, Mashpee (Mass.) football coach Matt Triveri spent much of last week dealing with the press.

Among the many questions he was asked: What are your most memorable victories since taking over as Mashpee's head coach?

It didn't take Triveri long to respond.

"One of the biggest had to be at Hull in my first year," said Triveri, who was elevated from an assistant on Mashpee's staff to head coach in 2005. "It took two-and-a-half years, but we got that first league (South Shore League) win. Then later that year we beat Abington the game before Thanksgiving. Abington went on to win the Super Bowl that year, so that kind of put people on notice."

Mashpee finished 6-4 that season, which proved to be the foundation for what has become a very stable program. Mashpee has been knocking on the championship door for several years – the Falcons are 41-4 over the past four seasons – but broke the door down Saturday night at Gillette Stadium, where they capped a 13-0 season by defeating previously unbeaten Cardinal Spellman (Brockton, Mass.) to win the Division 4 title, 34-8.

It was Mashpee's first appearance in an MIAA Super Bowl, and the first time a Mashpee team has completed a season undefeated.

"All we wanted to do was get this win for our school, our community and our kids," Triveri said. "It's been a great run and a great story for a small town."

The story began back in 1999, when Mashpee first fielded a varsity football team. The school, which includes grades 7 through 12, opened in 1996 with grades 7, 8 and 9. Before then, Mashpee athletes attended nearby Falmouth, also on Cape Cod.

The Falcons were 7-3 in their first varsity season, which provided lots of false hope. Back-to-back 0-10 seasons followed. The Falcons also suffered through losing seasons in 2002 (3-7), 2003 (2-8) and 2004 (3-6-1).
 
Enter Triveri, who was working at the school as a history teacher. Triveri had already been hired to coach the school's varsity basketball program, and, according to Mashpee athletic director Mike Horne, was an obvious choice to become the varsity football coach as well.

"He'll probably be the principal here someday," Horne said. "We haven't had a losing season since he's been the head coach and we won the league for the first time this year. I've never seen anybody prepare a team so well. We may lose because we don't have enough athletes, but it won't be because we're not ready to play. He has a great staff of coaches."

Triveri said there are many reasons Mashpee struggled before he took over, but poor coaching wasn't one of them. Foremost among the problems was an obvious lack of talent.

"It was a combination of things," he explained. "We were probably in a league (the Patriot League) we shouldn't have been in back then, and in my opinion we were in over our heads. That caught up with us and we started losing kids. At one point our offensive line averaged 160 pounds. We couldn't get it done.

"We had some great coaches then, but we also had some kids who weren't great kids, quite honestly."

Triveri, 38, had a simple plan for strengthening the program: Identify the athletes walking the halls of Mashpee, and get as many of them on the football field as possible.

The Falcons have posted a winning record in each of Triveri's seven seasons as the program's head coach: 6-4 (2005), 8-3 (2006), 7-4 (2007), 10-1 (2008), 9-2 (2009), 9-2 (2010) and 13-0 (2013).

"When I first took over we would do anything to be aggressive," Triveri said. "Those first three years we threw 15, 20, 25 times a game. We used a lot of four- and five-wide sets. That's fun for the kids. We tried to get the best athletes out. Winning sells itself, but at a small school you have to compete for numbers.

"That win over Abington (in 2005) – that's the one that kind of established our program. That's when the kids began buying into what we were selling."

Mashpee had just 32 players in its program this season, and eight players started on both sides of the ball. The team's biggest question entering the season was depth on the offensive line. As Saturday's victory over Cardinal Spellman proved, however, there was no lack of depth in the offensive backfield.

Senior running back Jordan Keli'inui – the team's leading rusher entering the game – did not play on offense because of an ankle injury suffered in Mashpee's semifinal victory. In his absence Jared Taylor, a 5-foot-10, 205-pound junior, had the game of his life.

Taylor, who shared the carries with Keli'inui during the team's previous 12 games, rushed for 306 yards and three touchdowns on 26 carries. He ran for 209 yards on nine carries in the third quarter, when Mashpee scored three touchdowns to extend its lead to 28-0.

"It was a great feeling to help out," Taylor said. "I did it for everyone in Mashpee."

The Falcons finished the game with a 438-104 edge in net offense.

"This was a special night," Triveri said, moments after his team's Super Bowl victory. "This is a game we'll always remember."