Boston 25 unveils 8-person panel for new Top 10 High School Football Poll

DEDHAM, Mass. — After two years, high school football returns to the fall in Massachusetts, with players and coaches from throughout the region clamoring to get back on the field and renew the traditions associated with Friday Night Football.

Boston 25 is once again proud to be the local leader in high school sports television coverage. Our popular Boston 25 High School Football GameDay Game of the Week returns this year, with our team spotlighting a showcase game each Friday night, featuring highlights on Boston 25 News at 11, Boston25News.com and the Boston 25 News Facebook page.

This year, we are also introducing the Boston 25 Top Ten High School Football Poll. An esteemed panel of eight high school reporters will compile a consensus poll each week, and one member of the panel will join Tom Leyden each Sunday on the Sports Wrap at 11:15.

The Panel:

Brendan Hall

Brendan Hall is a long-time popular fixture on the high school football scene in Massachusetts and has been an annual Thanksgiving Day guest on Boston 25 for more than a decade. He was high school editor for the popular ESPN Boston website from 2010-16 and has been covering football for the Boston Globe as a correspondent since 2006. After his wedding ring, he counts his Super Bowl XLIX ring he won with the New England Patriots as his most prized possession. Currently, Brendan is a content marketer at Hudl, a game film and data analysis platform that services 99% of North American high school football teams.

Matt Feld

Matt Feld has spent the last seven seasons covering high school football for the Boston Herald working throughout eastern Massachusetts. In addition to weekly game coverage, Feld compiles human-interest stories and features. During the winter and spring months, he takes the lead on the newspaper’s high school basketball and baseball coverage. He spent two years working for ESPNBoston.com and the Cape Cod Baseball League. Along with being a high school sports writer, Feld currently works as the Coordinator of Operations for Nor’Easters, a premier travel baseball organization in the northeast out of Tewksbury.

Jenna Ciccotelli

Jenna Ciccotelli is a digital content producer for NESN.com, covering Boston and New England’s professional sports teams. After getting her start with The Boston Globe, where she covered a variety of MIAA sports as a beat writer, she joined Boston 25 as an intern. In that role, she helped stimulate the economy by riding the MBTA’s Commuter Rail across the state to cover teams for the High School GameDay Game of the Week segment. She previously worked as a breaking news writer for Bleacher Report.

Mike Flanagan

Mike Flanagan is the sports editor for The Hometown Weekly (Dover, Medfield, Needham, Sherborn, Walpole, Westwood) where he primarily covers high school athletics. Mike is a graduate of Xaverian (2011), Stonehill College (Bachelor’s, 2015) and Syracuse (Master’s, 2020). Mike writes stories for The Hometown Weekly and also works as a freelance photographer, shooting video and posting highlights and photos on social media from the games he covers. Follow Mike on Instagram @flano0

Tom Leyden

Tom Leyden has covered high school sports since 2000 when he started his television career in Allentown, Pa. Tom co-hosted The Big Ticket, a 60-minute high school football show in Pennsylvania and continued his passion for high school football in Detroit, Mich., where he worked for 12 seasons. Since joining Boston 25 in 2015, Tom has spearheaded Boston 25′s comprehensive, interactive coverage of high school football and co-hosted the High School GameDay Thanksgiving Special with Butch Stearns. Tom also produced, wrote and narrated the Emmy-nominated documentary ‘Needham/Wellesley: More Than A Game’ in 2015.

Butch Stearns

Butch Stearns is a sports anchor/reporter at Boston 25. He has a long history with high school football in Massachusetts. Butch played high school football at Braintree High School (class of 1978). He also played football at Stonehill College and was a captain his senior season. Butch has covered high school football for four decades and every Friday he reports live from a different high school football game each week on our Boston 25 High School GameDay Game of the Week.

Chad Amaral

Chad Amaral is our longtime Boston 25 sports producer. He’s overseen our high school football coverage since 2013. Chad has lived in Massachusetts almost his entire life - a Dartmouth resident - and has attended a high school game every Thanksgiving since birth.

David Souza

Dave Souza is a digital content producer at Boston 25 News and has been a leader on the web for the station’s sports content since the end of 2018. He has previously covered high school sports for a handful of other local outlets in Massachusetts from hockey to football to baseball and even rugby. A graduate of St. John’s Prep (’14), Souza has lived in Massachusetts for the last 25 years.