Football: Marblehead, Beverly ready for NEC South showdown

It’s a game that has plenty of good storylines, but there’s only one that matters to the Marblehead and Beverly football teams on Friday night (7) at Piper Field.The winner will still have complete control of its own destiny in the Northeastern Conference’s South division, while the loser will need some help to stick its foot back in the race.”As a coach, that’s the best part about this game,” Marblehead coach Jim Rudloff said. “You can keep the kids focused on this game and not let them look ahead. Because if we don’t handle what we have to against Beverly, it becomes out of our control and that’s what you don’t want.”For Rudloff and Beverly coach Dan Bauer, who are friends and coached together at Beverly until this season, facing each other will be strange, but at the same time fun.”Jimmy is a great guy and we will always be friends,” Bauer said. “I told him when he got the job that I wished him luck, except for one game during the year.”For Rudloff, preparing for a team that he knows so well is both easy and yet at the same time difficult.”It’s kind of a blessing and a curse knowing so much about them like I do,” Rudloff said. “It makes scouting them a lot easier, but knowing how talented they are certainly makes it a lot harder preparing. They really have a nice mix of everything you want to do.”Both teams come into the game on the back of wins. The Panthers (5-2, 2-1 NEC South) did it convincingly, beating Saugus 51-0, while the Magicians used a 21-point fourth quarter to pull away to a 42-20 win over Danvers.The fourth quarter has been good to the Magicians lately as they have exploded in each of their last three contests to win in the final 11 minutes.”We’ve worked hard to be there, so we can play well in the second half of every game,” Rudloff said. “We’ve started slow in the last couple of games, but once our kids have gotten a sense of the game speed, they’ve seemed to do better.”A big reason for the Magicians getting off to a 7-1 start is the play of quarterback Hayes Richardson. The senior has expertly guided the Marblehead spread offense to an average of 31.4 points per game and has done it with both his arm and his legs.Richardson has thrown for 11 touchdown passes and has run for another 12.”Hayes has played outstanding to this point,” Rudloff said. “He can both run and throw, so that makes it harder to defend him. I’m happy with the fact that we’ve brought a balanced offense to the table, because it’s helped us to be able to do both.”Fortunately for Beverly, the Panthers have a pretty fair quarterback themselves in senior Mark Hannable.After missing the first three games of this season due to mononucleosis, Hannable has not missed a beat in charge of the Panthers’ spread attack. He’s thrown nine touchdown passes in four games, leading Beverly to a 3-1 mark in that time.”Mark has been doing very well for us,” Bauer said. “The offense has been doing pretty good lately. Except for the dip we had against Danvers.”Rudloff, however, knows from his time standing on the Beverly sideline that the Panthers are full of talent everywhere.”You can’t really line up and try to take one thing away from them,” Rudloff said. “They have so many weapons that they can beat you in so many ways. They are very talented and well-coached.”English at SalemAt Bertram Field (7), the Bulldogs (6-2, 1-1 NEC North) will try to bounce back from a disappointing loss in Gloucester against a Salem team desperate to get a victory.English had no answer for Gloucester’s attack in a 48-7 loss last week. The Fishermen held the Bulldogs to 134 yards of total offense and torched the English defense for 400 yards on the ground.For Salem, it was another tough loss in conference play as it was held to 87 total yards in a 16-7 loss at Peabody.Peabody at ClassicalAt Manning Field (7), the Rams (5-3, 2-0 NEC North) are still very much a player for a conference title and will look to stay perfect in league play against a Peabody team that comes in off a solid