BEVERLY – For the second time this season, Beverly quarterback Mark Hannable engineered a game-winning drive in the final seconds. This one preserved his team’s hopes for an NEC South championship.Hannable’s 13-yard run with 18 seconds left capped a six-play, 50-yard drive to give Beverly a 20-16 win over Swampscott at Hurd Stadium.The Panthers threw a monkey wrench into the NEC South race, taking over second place at 3-1. Marblehead (3-0) leads the division; the Big Blue fall to 2-1.”That is a real program win for us,” Beverly coach Dan Bauer said. “As tough a loss as last week was (to Marblehead), one thing we brought out of it is that we never stopped playing and believing in ourselves. And that helped (Saturday).”There was a scary moment in the final minutes when Swampscott’s Kyle Shonio was taken off the field on a stretcher following a collision with Beverly receiver Curtis Manuel.Shonio was awake and alert and had movement in his extremities as he left the field. Swampscott coach Steve Dembowski said that Shonio was taken off for precautionary measures.Safety Chris Cameron also was dinged up on the play, and with linebacker Ilya Levin having gone out earlier in the second half, the Big Blue were without three of their playmakers in the final moments.”We just ran out of bodies,” Dembowski said. “It’s a classic upset. We let them hang around and they are well coached and made the plays to win.”After the delay for Shonio’s injury, the Panthers faced a fourth-and-eight from the Swampscott 38 with just under a minute to go. Hannable looked to Beverly’s star, Rashad Sims, who caught a 23-yard pass for a first down.Following a Hannable run and a timeout with 23 seconds left, the Panthers were trying to set up Ryan Flannery for a game-winning field goal attempt. But after getting a perfect lead block from Sims, Hannable went 13 yards up the middle to give Beverly the lead with 18.8 seconds left.”We had good field position at that point, but we were down to one timeout and that made us nervous,” Bauer said about the final march. “But we were able to get the first down and things rolled from there.”Swampscott got to its 42 with seven seconds left, but Cameron’s desperation heave was intercepted by Manuel at the gun for the fifth and final Big Blue turnover of the game.”We probably played our worst offensive game of the season and made a hundred mistakes,” Dembowski said. “But credit them for stopping us in the red zone and for getting the turnovers they caused.”Despite a 227-30 advantage in first-half total yardage, the Big Blue only led 13-7 thanks to several stops by the Panthers in the red zone. The biggest stop came when Dylan Terry intercepted a Levin halfback option pass in the end zone.After a scoreless third quarter, a false start on first and goal from the two resulted in Swampscott settling for a 29-yard Matt Barbuzzi field goal that made it 16-7 in the fourth.Beverly responded on the next snap with George Louis’ 55-yard touchdown, trimming the gap to two points and setting the stage for the dramatic finish.
