Leominster WINS Chicken Bowl finishing Undefeated

(Courtesy Sean Sweeney-Fitchburg Sentinel)
FITCHBURG — With Osiris Lopez graduating this June and playing his last high school football game this Thursday morning on this very field, and seeing what he has done over the last four years, one would think that the Leominster football team may go on a downward path next fall. After all, lightning can’t strike twice in such a short period of time, right?
But with what occurred in the annual subvarsity Chicken Bowl Saturday morning, any thought of Leominster’s future demise may be rather premature.
LHS freshman Jake Economo threw for 134 yards and two touchdowns while running for two more, while Rajon Curley-White rushed for 166 yards on 8 carries and a score as Leominster mercied host Fitchburg, 44-6, at historic Crocker Field.
The game, usually played at the school not hosting on Thanksgiving morning, returned to the corner of Circle and Broad for the second consecutive year as the MIAA occupied historic Doyle Field as a soccer state final site for the first time ever.
It didn’t matter where the game was played, as Leominster just took care of business to cap off a perfect 10-0 season. After the game, the LHS players posed in front of the Crocker scoreboard, flashing L’s for their school.
“It was great,” LHS JV coach Mike Curley said afterward. “Everyone got better all season long. Obviously we’re going to lose a lot of pieces at varsity, it was good to see these guys get comfortable in our system and ready to move on.
“We just took each moment, and every game we looked to be 1-0 every week. We didn’t look ahead, we just worried about the task at hand.”
Leominster scored on each of its first four first-half drives, with Economo—son of former Lunenburg High boys’ basketball coach Jon Economo, who himself was a stellar athlete at the Little Burg and Anna Maria back in the early to mid 1990s—executing out of the shotgun, showing those who came to The House That Alvah Built on this raw Saturday morning that yes, Virginia, the wagon is going to continue into 2028. On a number of plays, he handed the ball off to Curley-White or to Christopher Guerrero or to Albert Lopez—or just took it himself. Sometimes he’d step up in the pocket and fire a strike to Yanzee Alvarez or to Curley-White.
Two of his passes went to Mr. Alvarez for scores, the first a neat 5-yard quick slant to the right after Curley-White went off the left side on second-and-4 to set up the TD, before Economo called his own number for the next two TD runs, both—15 and 14 yards, respectively—on a pair of scrambles.
He finished with 6 carries for 69 yards. LHS head coach Devin Gates hinted Economo may see time Thursday.
Economo’s second TD pass to Alvarez went for 33 yards, giving LHS a 28-0 lead at the intermission.
“Osiris has been coaching Jake up all season long, making sure that he’s able to take over for him,” Curley said of the ninth grader. “He’s taking the reins in stride; last year I had the privilege of helping him in Pop Warner, and we didn’t really throw a lot, but he’s picked it up.”
Curley-White rumbled 69 yards for Leominster’s five score of the day, going off the right tackle and outracing the Fitchburg secondary to the end zone, with Lopez’s conversion run making it 36-0 with six minutes left in the third, before Jayden Surrette came up with a critical fumble record.
Lopez then triggered the mercy rule on a 23-yard TD run with about 2:33 remaining in the third.
Fitchburg got on the board as it had the ball for the entirety of the fourth quarter, with Diony Cruz going off the left side for a 1-yard TD run.
Cruz had 14 carries for 48 yards, leading the way for FHS. John Hartwell-Cormier, who had left briefly with a knee injury, returned and had seven carries for 30 yards.
Leominster held Fitchburg to 100 yards of total offense on the morning.