English football shakes off slow start to beat Salem

LYNN – It took the Lynn English football team a half to find its bearings on Friday night at Manning Field. But once that happened, the Bulldogs took over against Salem.P.J. Dorsey’s return of a Brad Skeffington interception for a touchdown gave English the jump-start it needed. By the time the Bulldogs were through, they had rattled off 24 unanswered points to take a 30-6 win.Salem6English30 “It was a lot tougher game than 30-6 might indicate,” English coach Peter Holey said. “They came out hard and we didn’t match the intensity Salem had in the first quarter. But our defense played outstanding (Friday). That is a big, athletic team and we did a great job holding them to six points.”The Bulldogs (5-4, 3-1 NEC North) put the clamps on Skeffington, holding the senior quarterback to 52 total yards, and got outstanding games from usual suspects Tyllor McDonald and Melvin Tavares with Dorsey emerging in a big way in the second half.English moved Tavares from his running back spot to a slot position in the second half as Dorsey began to pound away at the Salem defense, finishing with 54 yards. Tavares added 98 and a touchdown while McDonald ran for two and threw for a third touchdown.Salem (4-5) came out hot and actually broke the ice late in the first quarter thanks to a 13-play, 94-yard march engineered brilliantly by Skeffington. The drive would culminate when Skeffington threw a laser beam to Antonio Reyes down the middle for a 20-yard touchdown on the final play of the first quarter.The Witches protected that 6-0 lead until late in the half when English’s offense finally got going. McDonald, Tavares and Dorsey did all the work on an eight-play drive that went 55 yards and ended with a two-yard McDonald run that tied the game at halftime.English had a chance to go ahead midway through the third but was stopped on downs by the Witches at the Salem 23. Moments later, Skeffington was sacked for a nine-yard loss and Dorsey stepped in front of a pass intended for Reyes and took it to the house to give English the lead for good.”High school football is 100 percent about momentum and Dorsey made a great play there. He was spying Antonio the whole way,” Salem coach Scott Connolly said.It was still a 13-6 game heading to the fourth quarter and the Witches were set to get the ball back when a second damaging play bit them.Edval Vargas’ punt hit Salem’s Dwayne Satterwhite and English’s Kwame Johnson recovered at the Witches’ 11. The Bulldogs turned that into a 28-yard Cory Burt field goal that made it 16-6 and then delivered a knockout punch with 6:30 left when Tavares raced 78 yards to pay dirt to make it 23-6.Travonne Berry-Rogers would add a six-yard TD reception with 2:00 left to close out the scoring.