Classical gets wake-up call, beats Marblehead

LYNN – It wasn’t until Marblehead had taken a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter Friday that the Classical football team got the wake-up message it needed to play some hard-nosed football.Marblehead14Classical28 Putting their nose to the grindstone, the Rams did just that, storming back to score the game’s final 28 points and take a 28-14 win over the Magicians at Manning Field.”We didn’t come out mentally ready to play at the start,” Classical coach Tim Phelps said. “And you can’t do that against good teams like Marblehead. They are so well coached and have a lot of talent. I knew this wouldn’t be an easy game.”Marblehead (1-2) was ready to go early, making things look nearly effortless in the opening half. Then began the self-inflicted and mental mistakes that would doom the Magicians in the final 22 minutes.”We couldn’t have asked for anything better than how we started,” Marblehead coach Jim Rudloff said. “We did everything right in the first half. But we needed to have that killer instinct and I’m disappointed with how things went in the second half.”Marblehead came out and started quick, grabbing a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter when Dan Colbert’s two-yard sneak capped a 56-yard march. An interception by Phil Coughlin on Classical’s next drive led to the Magicians taking a 14-0 lead on a three-yard Will Quigley run early in the second.Classical got the ball back with 9:20 left in the half and put together a drive that completely swung the momentum of the game in its favor. Mixing up its option offense to perfection, the Rams systematically marched 77 yards in 14 plays that ate up almost eight minutes and ended with Keith Nance’s two-yard run that cut the lead to 14-6 at halftime.”We’ve had drives like that all year,” Phelps said. “When we started to play, our offensive and defensive lines stepped up.”After the squads traded three-and-outs to start the second half, Classical got the ball at its 41 with 6:35 left in the third quarter and put together another sustained scoring drive. It took eight plays and nearly five minutes to go the 59 yards as Sam Rios’ 24-yard dash on third and three shaved the lead to 14-12 after a missed conversion pass.Marblehead would have its next drive killed by a false start penalty, giving Classical back the ball late in the third quarter.”Every mistake we made in the second half was our fault,” Rudloff said. “And Classical also came out and physically beat us up in the second half.”Quarterback Nick Grassa gave the Rams a big boost on the first play of the final period as he broke a 20-yard gain on a keeper to move the ball into Marblehead territory. Three plays later, he went off the left side again and raced 27 yards to pay dirt to finally push the Rams ahead at 20-14 after his conversion rush.”Nick has been running the offense well for us all year,” Phelps said.Marblehead got a chance to steal away the win with 7:14 left when Grassa fumbled and the Magicians recovered at the Classical 37. As became the case throughout the second half though, Marblehead stopped its own momentum with a holding call and Nance’s 87-yard interception return for a touchdown turned out the lights for good.