Classical runs wild, defeats Marblehead

MARBLEHEAD – Lynn Classical rushed for 321 yards against Marblehead on Friday night ? And it almost wasn’t enough to hold off the Magicians at Piper Field.Marblehead quarterback Hayes Richardson’s passing clinic made sure of that.Richardson put up 41 passes, completing 21 of them for 241 yards and two touchdowns. The game, though, came down to one play as Classical’s Casey Johnson dashed 49 yards for a touchdown, his third of the night, on fourth and a foot with 29 seconds left to finally ensure a 28-15 Rams win.”I had been preaching to the team all week that this was going to be a tough game,” Classical coach Tim Phelps said. “Marblehead was coming in off two great games and we were able to step up at times and make some big plays.”Johnson’s touchdown run in the final moments was the final big play in a fourth quarter that saw the Classical (2-1) defense come up with two huge defensive stops, including an endzone interception from Keith Nance, in the first three minutes of the fourth. And Johnson rip off a 78 yard touchdown run that gave the Rams a two touchdown lead only to see Richardson bring Marblehead (2-1) back with a touchdown pass of his own at the 1:00 mark.But the Rams recovered Mike Bernato’s onside kick and saw Johnson put the game on ice moments later.”The first half kind of killed us because we didn’t come out firing,” Marblehead coach Jim Rudloff said. “We started off on our heels and were kind of fortunate to only be down two scores.”Classical was firing on all cylinders early as it forced Marblehead to punt on the game’s opening drive and then marched 34 yards on eight plays to a 7-0 lead on the first of Johnson’s three scores.Following another Marblehead three-and-out, Classical upped the lead to 15-0 when Kashaun Avery won a footrace to the right corner of the endzone for a touchdown and 2-point pass from Jasper Grassa to Johnson.Early in the second quarter, the Rams were in position to go in for the kill after Avery snared the first of Richardson’s three interceptions and returned it to the Marblehead 20. But the Magician defense stood tall and held, forcing a Nick Grassa incompletion on fourth-and-five.Richardson, who had thrown for two yards to this point, then got the Magicians in position to strike when he hit Evan Comeau (eight catches, 123 yards) for a 31-yard gain to the Rams 37. But the Classical pass rush, which harried Richardson throughout the first half, rushed a throw and Avery got his second interception of the half to send the Rams to the dressing room up by 15.”At the half we got together and talked about what we needed to do and the kids stepped up,” Rudloff said.Marblehead forced a three and out by the Rams to start the third quarter. With a virtually nonexistent running attack, Richardson used screens and short swing passes to his slot receivers to act as a run game.Comeau gained 10 yards on a slip screen and then 11 more on the next play to get the ball to the Ram 30. Two plays later, Richardson threw a strike to Matt Perlow on a skinny post for a 26 yard touchdown that cut the lead to seven after a sneak for a 2-point conversion by the senior quarterback.Classical moved right back down field, reaching the Marblehead 16 late in the third before fumbling on fourth-and-seven. The Magicians then got a 37-yard strike from Richardson to Alex Haigis on the penultimate play of the third quarter to put them in position for the tying points. But Classical forced two incompletions at the beginning of the fourth quarter to thwart that march.”Defensively, we were winded at times there,” Phelps said. “And we can’t put pressure on our ‘D’ like that as an offense.”