Football Team Wins D6 Super Bowl

Bulldog celebrates as Rockland takes the lead!

Ollie Robinson and Veritas Staff

By now everyone knows that the Rockland Bulldogs won the MIAA Division Six football championship at Gillette Stadium on Dec. 3, but here’s our story that appeared in the December issue of the Veritas in case you missed it.

The Dogs took down the Green Wave of Abington by a score of 23 to 13.

Senior captain PJ Celestino was confident they would win. He said, “I knew we were going to win. Just the whole day I had that feeling. Especially through warmups we were all ready to go and you could feel it.”

So, how did the Dogs pull off this win? “We just played for each other, played our game, and had the belief in our coaching staff to put us in the right position to make plays and win,” said Celestino.

Celestino also said that beating Abington again was even more exciting for them. “We’ve been playing those same kids our whole lives and it was pretty cool to cap off our senior year on the winning side of things against them. I don’t think the kids in this senior and junior class have ever started a football game against Abington and lost.”

While Celestino’s scoring was key, it was also the defense that carried the Bulldogs in this game.

Against Abington, Rockland forced five turnovers including two fumble recoveries by Gabe Pinheiro, and one by Lucas Leander, and two interceptions by Jacob Coulstring.

Reflecting on the whole experience Celestino voiced the feelings of the team, coaches and all the people of Rockland who went out to Gillette on Friday night. “It was insane. Just to think of the history of that stadium and what’s been done there; it was pretty cool.”

It seemed like the entire school and the town were all out at Gillette. “There were alumni from the 1982 Super Bowl team,” said Gary Graziano in a tweet, and players also from the other Super Bowl championship teams of 1992, 1998 and 2000.

PJ, who says he plans to continue to play football in college, had some final words for his teammates and coaches. “Thank you to all my teammates and coaches for a great 4 years playing for this program and thank you all for your dedication this season.”

He also had a prediction for next year. “But the craziest thing is the boys are gonna’ be going back next year.”