Peabody beats Somerville to score first win since 2011

PEABODY – Rebuilding teams will go through highs and lows throughout the season. On Friday night, Peabody’s 34-27 win at Coley-Lee field over Somerville was a microcosm of that roller coaster of rebuilding. The win is both the first of the season and the first under new head coach Mark Bettencourt.Led by the strong running of sophomore running back Doug Santos, the Tanner jumped out to a 20-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. By the start of the fourth? Peabody’s cushion had evaporated to a 26-20 lead and a turnover on downs.”After getting the lead and then seeing what happened in the third, I was not shocked by our reaction,” said Bettancourt. “When you have a program that you are trying to turn around, that will happen. You need to do something to turn it back around and get confidence.”After getting a strong defensive stance, against a Somerville offense that had given them fits all night, the Tanners started to feel that confidence.In five plants, Peabody moved downfield and grabbed back the momentum on a 30-yard touchdown pass from Michael Raymond to Ivan Tran.The good feelings were fleeting as the Highlanders immediately struck back, moving 76 yards in two plays to score. A 56-yard gain down the sidelines, followed by a 20-yard touchdown connection, both thrown by Phoenix Huertas took the air out of the stadium. Losing feelings had returned.The Tanners did rise up again late in the game. Holding a one score lead, their defense again came up with a big stop on 4th down from their own 15. With the Highlanders knocking on the door, Peabody was able to shut them down when Javier Moyeno tracked down a stretch run and made the tackle for a loss.Santos had a huge game for Peabody, scoring twice and rushing for 180 yards. The counterpunch employed by Peabdoy was the outside running of Ryan Collins. With Somerville keyed on Santos, Collins took advantage of misdirection plays to tally two scores of his own and 142 yards rushing.”We wanted to come up with some plays that completed what we can do with Santos,” said Bettancourt. “You saw that in some of the plays we ran with Collins, or with Raymond throwing the ball tonight.”