Front and center, Marshfield eighth-grader Riley Chesna ran onto the football field with her teammates carrying a long golden sledgehammer.
The scene, at Legion Field in Bridgewater, symbolized how much of an impact 14-year-old Riley has had on her team over the years, defying the odds as the lone girl player.
Riley, an outside linebacker and a team captain, returned an interception down to the goal line before cashing in on a one-yard touchdown run last weekend against Scituate. A week later, she made a handful of tackles in a 14-8 victory against Bridgewater on Saturday.
Riley’s doing it all with her uncle, Michael Chesna, watching from above, carrying on the fallen Weymouth police sergeant’s values of courage and determination.
Chesna died at age 42 in the line of duty on July 15, 2018, when Emanuel Lopes shot Riley’s uncle multiple times in the face and chest, killing him with his service pistol. Bystander Verna Adams was also shot and killed in the rampage.
After helping lead her team to its seventh win of the season, Riley reflected on her connection with her uncle and her love for football. She often thinks about ‘Uncle Mike’ and how he taught her to “be a good kid and try hard.”
Riley has become one of her team’s top defensive players over the past four years, head coach John Hanafin told the Herald.
Hanafin’s squad, which he has coached for six seasons, has won two championships in past years, carrying on Marshfield’s tradition as a football powerhouse at all levels.
Riley is the only girl Hanafin said he has coached, but that hasn’t stopped her from serving as a team leader and an inspiration to “a lot of little kids out there.”
Hanafin recognized Riley’s performance last weekend with the “Golden Hammer Award” on Saturday.
“She’s not intimidated,” Hanafin said of Riley.
“She has a strong family name,” he added. “Every time she’s on the football field she lives up to that. She is a special player — physical, strong and a great attitude.”
Riley is unsure what her future on the gridiron looks like as she enters high school next year.
Marshfield Youth Football, though, has provided a community that she and her family have grown to love, one they say they needed after Michael Chesna’s tragic death.
“It’s a great joy watching her play, watching all of my kids play, watching other people’s kids out there,” Riley’s father Eric told the Herald. “The team is a unit, they’re not one individual, they all go out there and support each other.”
“They supported my family,” he added. “They’re just amazing people, amazing kids.”
The Chesnas saw “some” justice served this past summer after waiting for years.
Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone sentenced Lopes to two consecutive life terms on July 31, six years and two weeks after taking Chesna and Adams’ lives in the brief rampage in the early morning hours of July 15, 2018.
Weymouth Police received emergency calls that morning about Lopes driving erratically and that he was later throwing rocks in a residential neighborhood.
When Chesna located Lopes, he saw the man with a large rock in his hands and ordered him to drop it. Instead, Lopes threw the rock at Chesna’s head, walked over to the downed officer, grabbed his service pistol and shot him five times in the head and chest.
Another officer shot at Lopes through the police cruiser window, striking Lopes in the leg. Police soon apprehended him before realizing Adams, a 77-year-old bystander, had been shot and killed in the mayhem as she sat on her nearby porch.
“Obviously, no sentence is ever going to be long enough for us because we’re sentenced to a life sentence,” Chesna’s mother, Maryann “Mimi” Chesna, told reporters outside the courthouse following the July hearing. She and Chesna’s widow, Cindy, had supported the death penalty.
Watching granddaughter Riley play football and basketball, and their other grandchildren participate in other sports, Mimi Chesna told the Herald Saturday that she and her husband Charles have built “camaraderie” with parents and fellow grandparents.
“It definitely brings some happiness,” Mimi said. “Mike loved football so he would be so proud of her.”
Riley’s parents, Eric and Kristen Chesna, echoed Mimi’s stance that football has provided Riley a “great” avenue to express herself. Being on the football team has translated into lessons Riley applies to her “whole lifestyle,” Mimi said.
Riley’s passion for football and basketball follows Uncle Mike’s legacy as a “massive sports fan,” as described in his obituary.
“Besides being an avid basketball player in his weekly men’s league,” the obituary reads, “he followed all the Boston sports teams with a passion and had a particular devotion to Bill Belichick. Mike was a collector. Among his collection were watches, bobbleheads, baseball cards and football helmets
Michael Chesna earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star as a veteran of the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. His brother Eric believes Riley learned never to give up and to help everybody out through her uncle.
“He would be here all of the time. He’s here now watching her,” Eric said of Michael’s support for Riley while looking up at the sky. “He would be here every day.”
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