Swampscott upsets Marblehead, 25-16

SWAMPSCOTT ? Swampscott High coach Steve Dembowksi normally isn’t an emotional guy, but he couldn’t help getting a little choked up after his Big Blue upset Marblehead, 25-16, in their annual Thanksgiving game at Blocksidge Field.View Photo Gallery”I don’t think one person picked us to win this game in the newspapers,” said Dembowski, as he embraced his young daughters on the field after the game. “We haven’t lost to Marblehead two years in a row in the 19 years I’ve been with the program, and after the way we had played in our last three games, it looked pretty bleak. But the coaches came up with a game plan that we believed in and the kids executed it almost perfectly,” said Dembowski.The strategy on offense was to force Marblehead’s outside linebackers to guess run or pass, and then do the opposite. The scheme made the Big Blue (5-6) the aggressors, while the Magicians (8-3) were more passive then their rivals.”You look across the line and you see they’re bigger and taller at almost every position,” Dembowski said. “We knew if we didn’t get off to a good start in the first quarter, it was going to be ugly.”The Big Blue held the Magicians even in the first quarter, and then scored twice on a 15-yard pass from Brian Santry to Josh Rothwell and a 20-yard run by Santry on a throwback pass from Aaron Cronin in the second quarter to take a 13-0 lead at halftime.Santry also had a hand in both of Swampscott’s touchdowns in the second half. He threw a 41-yard scoring pass to Cronin and then ran four yards for a touchdown with 1:50 left in the game to assure the win.Marblehead’s Zac Cuzner scored both of his team’s touchdowns, on runs of four and seven yards. Marblehead’s other two points came on a safety when Spencer Craig tackled Santry in the end zone in the fourth quarter.For Marblehead, the game was lost on turnovers and missed opportunities. Swampscott’s Ryan January ended two promising Marblehead drives in the first half with interceptions, while the Magicians turned the ball over on downs twice inside Swampscott’s territory, including a drive that ended at Swampscott’s 2-yard line in the fourth quarter.”We just got out-coached, out-played, out-motivated, out-everything,” Marblehead coach Jim Rudloff said. “We didn’t deserve to lose. It was more a case of Swampscott deserved to win because they did everything better than we did in all phases of the game. We just went out and got our (rear ends) handed to us.”The Magicians’ first spoiled opportunity came on their second drive of the game. On fourth-and-6 from the Swampscott 22, quarterback Ian Maag was knocked out-of-bounds by Toby Hale two yards short of the first down marker. Marblehead’s next drive also went into Big Blue territory, but January picked off Maag at the Big Blue 22 to end the threat on the next-to-last play of the first quarter.The turnover energized Swampscott, which traveled 78 yards in 12 plays for its first score. The Magicians helped the Big Blue by committing two offsides penalties, including a brutal infraction on fourth-and-4 from the Marblehead 23.”It seemed like we had about 37 penalties called against us by one official who called one on them,” Rudloff said. “I thought the officials did a great job and they certainly weren’t the reason we lost, but it was a little bit bizarre.”A nine-yard throw from Santry to Cronin gave the Big Blue a first-and-goal at the four, but an illegal procedure penalty and a sack of Santry by Rajive Alcindor and Kyle McCormick put the ball back at the 15-yard line. Santry then hit Rothwell in the middle of the first for an easy score, and Corey Carmody’s point after kick gave the Big Blue a 7-0 lead with 5:41 left in the first half.The Magicians drove right back down the field and had a second-and-inches at the Swampscott 14, but two plays lost four yards and on fourth down Maag’s throw over the middle resulted in January’s second interception with 1:11 left in the half.Instead of running out the clock from its own 15, Swam