THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, October 30, 2026 Page 7 FOOTBALL | FROM PAGE 1 1) Beat Medford on Thanksgiving 2) Win the Greater Boston League Championship 3) Qualify for the MIAA Playoffs and compete for the Super Bowl Championship in the postseason. Well, for the first time in about a decade, Malden High has positioned itself to challenge for all three of ’em! But the obstacle in their way happens to be this team named “Somerville High,” whom Malden faces Friday night. Somerville (3-4) happens to be ranked 17th in the MIAA Division 3 Power Rankings list, which determines which teams get to participate in the playoffs. Malden has its highest rating in many years, at this late date in October — 20th overall — on the newest chart, released Tuesday. (See chart on this page.) Malden’s best start in 20 years at 5-2 Following its fifth win, based on Friday’s night forfeit to the Golden Tornados by Manchester-Essex HS, Malden rises to 5-2 overall. The 5-2 mark represents Malden High football’s best season start in 21 seasons — since former Head Coach Rich Cullen’s squad started off 6-2 and finished 9-2 overall and, coincidentally, NOT GBL Champs. If Malden beats Somerville tonight, it will do the following: —Equal that best start in 21 years —Put the Golden Tornado Football team with a realistic shot at the 2026 Greater Boston League Championship, needing a win over Medford on Thanksgiving Day to vie for the GBL Crown —Put Malden square in the path of clinching a spot in the “Top 16” of the MIAA Division 3 Power Rankings, where it has to be to be seeded in the playoff field This is big stuff for the Tornados and would be Coach Exilhomme’s first playoffs since he took over at the start of the 2021 campaign. “We set those same goals every season and our players know what is on the line for us on Friday night,” Coach Exilhomme said. “We were ready to get that win Friday night, but they [Manchester-Essex] were not able to get enough healthy Malden picked up forfeit win from Manchester-Essex “That decision [to forfeit to Malden] did not hurt us as we have an extra week for some of our injured and recovering players to get back in the mix,” the Malden coach added. “We welcome those guys back for this [Somerville] game.” Two of those players are big “re-entries” to the Tornado lineup: senior 6-3, 355 lb. two-way lineman Noah Staggs and senior defensive back Josh Bly. Staggs has been out of action for the past four games since sustaining a leg injury in Week Three; Bly has missed the last three games with an ankle injury. Malden is led by the rushing of record-setting junior Jayden McGuffie on offense. McGuffie broke the 200-yard rushing mark for a game for the 12th time in 27 games played (also a school record) against Chelsea two weeks ago and rose to 910 yards rushing in just six games with 197 yards rushing and 3 TDs against Lynn Classical last week. Malden’s McGuffie breaks 4,000-yard rushing mark for his career Having already broken the 4,000-yard mark for his career, McGuffie improved to 4,434 yards on 496 carries in 27 games played. McGuffie also leads the state in Division 3 scoring with 88 points (12 TDs and 8 2X conversions). With the win, Malden improved to 5-2 overall and 2-0 in the GBL. Senior co-captain Josh Dionne is Malden’s first-year starting quarterback. The Malden defense — led by senior linebacker Jamaurie Brown, junior linebacker Ryan Vieira and senior captains Dante Bell at defensive back and Noah Granderson at defensive line — have stood out tall over the past two weeks in leading Malden to the pair of GBL victories. Senior running backs Arioc Akre and Divine Victory Nkudu have helped Malden build some depth on offense as well. Akre has scored touchdowns in each of the past three Malden games, one on a 65-yard kickoff return TD against Everett. Senior split end Jemiah Charles (3 TDs offense, 1 pick-six TD on defense) and junior Nathan Shonton are senior captain RANK SCHOOL 1 Mansfield 2 Milford 3 Marshfield 4 King Philip Regional 5 Barnstable 6 Melrose 7 North Attleborough 8 Milton 9 Minnechaug 10 Hingham 11 Doherty Memorial 12 Silver Lake Regional 13 Plymouth South 14 Reading Memorial 15 Malden Catholic 16 Masconomet Regional 17 Somerville 18 Oliver Ames 19 Lynn English 20 Malden 21 Revere 22 Whitman-Hanson Reg. 23 Sharon 24 Stoughton 25 Lynn Classical 26 West Springfield 27 Boston Latin 28 Agawam 29 Chicopee Comp. and quarterback Josh Dionne’s favorite targets. *** EXTRA POINTS: After Friday night’s game at Somerville, Malden will either await a seeding and potential MIAA Division 3 Playoff opponent for Week Eight, or get a consolation game opponent. They will know more after Friday night, where they must win to stay alive for a chance to make the playoffs... Somerville comes into tonight’s game at 3-4, coming off the heels of a dramatic finish in a heartbreaking loss to GBL power Everett (6-1) this past Friday night, 2827. Somerville had pulled within a point on the strength of a TD plunge by senior 6-1, 225 RB Marcos Pineda. The Highlanders went for the winning 2-pt. conversion with 5 seconds left to play, but Everett senior captain Tyler Freni made the tackle at the goal line to seal the win for the Crimson Tide... Pineda FOOTBALL | SEE PAGE 11 players and announced they had to forfeit the game to us. 2026 DIVISION 3 FOOTBALL POWER RANKINGS Includes scores entered into Arbiter as of October 27, 4 a.m. AVG. MARGIN = Average margin of victory, capped at +/- 14 points for any one game OPP. RATING = Average of a team's opponents' Overall Ratings RATING = Team's Overall Rating (Avg. Margin + Opp. Rating) FORFEIT ADJ. = Team's RATING has been adjusted for forfeit(s) … use this number to calculate OPP. RATING (strength of schedule) for opponents Top 16 teams with at least 3 wins and 7 games played qualify for the postseason tournament FORFEIT ADJ. * W L 6 1 6 1 5 1 5 2 5 2 5 2 4 2 5 2 3 4 4 3 3 4 4 3 2 5 5 2 4 3 2 5 3 4 2 5 2 5 5 2 3 4 2 5 5 2 0 7 3 4 0 7 3 3 2 5 0 7 AVG. MARGIN OPP. RATING RATING 10.5714 12.0623 22.6337 9.8571 7.5000 8.8571 4.8571 7.4286 2.8333 5.8571 10.6721 20.5292 12.2077 19.7077 10.4663 19.3235 11.8317 16.6888 9.1221 16.5506 13.1369 15.9703 9.7276 15.5848 -0.1429 10.1087 9.9659 2.5714 0.2857 0.8571 6.8458 9.0249 7.8880 2.0048 5.2271 2.9894 7.7868 9.4172 9.3106 8.7452 -5.2857 13.3729 8.0872 6.0000 2.2857 8.0048 7.5129 -7.8571 14.2370 6.3799 1.8571 4.8466 -6.5714 10.3153 3.7438 -6.1429 3.1429 -3.0000 -4.4286 5.2857 1.6439 -2.2246 0.9182 3.9127 3.8449 -12.4286 7.8207 -0.4286 -13.0000 6.3167 0.8333 -4.0000 -0.8913 0.9127 -0.5837 -7.9709 -2.6852 -4.6079 -4.8347 -5.2632 -6.6833 -9.0615 -8.2282 -7.3200 -11.3200 -11.7143 -6.7668 -18.4810
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