Prep falls to Dracut

DANVERS – Perhaps stuffing its schedule with the perennial powers of Massachusetts high school football is taking its toll on St. John’s Prep. The tired-looking Eagles sleepwalked through the first half of their matchup with visiting Dracut and found themselves on the short side of a 23-16 score. The loss is the Prep’s third straight.After getting trounced by Everett two weeks ago and losing a close game last week to Brockton, the Prep carried a 2-2 record into its home game against a Dracut squad on a down year. Considering Billerica, BC High, and Xaverian all loom on the schedule, it could end up being a long season for the 2-3 Eagles.”We spotted them points like we did last year and you can’t do that,” said St. John’s coach Jim O’Leary. “We needed to make plays and we didn’t do that. We turned the ball over; we can’t do those things.”Behind a nifty passing attack, Dracut built a 15-0 lead in the first quarter. The spread offense featured quarterback Matt Grimard delivering the ball to different receivers. The Middies (2-3) then used their running back hammer of Johnny Rivera to pound the ball past the goal line for the score. Rivera finished the game with two touchdowns and 66 yards rushing.The Prep got back in the game during the second quarter when Derek Coppola capped a seven-play drive with a nine-yard touchdown run. A Scott Darby rush was good for the two-point conversion, putting the score at 15-8.After the St. John’s score, both teams traded the ball via fumbles until Dracut ended the exchange and sewed together a 14-play drive that finished with Grimard finding Craig Lussier for a seven-yard score. The two-point conversion put the score at 23-8 heading into the half.The defense for the Eagles in the second half firmed up and, in addition to not allowing Dracut to score, forced the Middies into five three-and-outs and seven punts. Any chance St. John’s had at the comeback win was because the defense, led by Andrew McHugh, Rob Marraffa, and Patrick Higgins, was viciously stout in the second half.”We played better in the second half. We performed better,” O’Leary said of his defense. “We should have done that from the start of the game. We didn’t make any halftime adjustments, and they didn’t, either. They looked to do the same thing in the second half they did in the first.”However, the opportunities created were thrown away by the stumbling offense. Quarterback Darby threw three interceptions and twice was forced on fourth down, including on the last play of the game, to throw the ball out of bounds instead of making an errant throw in the field of play. Darby finished the game completing 14 of 35 passes for 227 yards with four interceptions and two lost fumbles.”We put ourselves in a hole, where we had to scramble at the end. We did a pretty good job when we came out, got the ball back, used the clock. We did all the things we were supposed to, but were just overall unproductive. We need points and we need to be better,” said O’Leary.The Eagles did get back into the game to make it interesting in the fourth quarter. Darby connected with Pat Dempsey, who then tossed a lateral to a streaking Coppola, who found pay dirt 64 yards later. The conversion put St. John’s within six at 23-16. Still, the offense sputtered and time ran out before the Prep could get another shot at redemption.