Lawrence holds on to defeat Peabody

PEABODY ? In a game of big plays, the Peabody football team came up one big play short.Lawrence (3-6) quarterback Nelson Valerio threw for 300 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Lancers past a feisty Peabody squad, 28-26, in an exciting game Friday night at Lee Field.Doug Santos rushed for 169 yards and a touchdown for the Tanners (3-7), who also got one rushing touchdown apiece from Cody Wlasuk and Ryan Collins, along with a 61-yard scoring pass from Mike Raymond to Tanner Moquin.”We knew they had some good skill position players, and it just came down to execution,” Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt said. “They executed more than we did, but I’m proud of the way my guys hung in there and fought the whole game.”After escaping from a couple of defenders on a scramble, Valerio tossed a 14-yard touchdown pass to Christian Valentin on 4th-and-goal to give the Lancers what appeared to be a relatively safe 28-19 lead with exactly three minutes left in the game. Raymond hooked up with Bill Teehan for 49 yards on the second play of the ensuing drive to move the Tanners to Lawrence’s 10-yard line. The Lancers held on the next three plays and knocked Raymond out-of-bounds on 4th down, but Lawrence was called for an offsides penalty that kept the drive alive. Ryan Collins swept in from the 2-yard line on the next play, and the extra point closed Peabody’s gap to two points with 1:05 left.The ensuing onside kick attempt failed to travel the required 10 yards, however, and Valerio twice took a knee to kill the rest of the clock.With Santos getting most of the carries, the Tanners took the opening kickoff and traveled 70 yards in 11 plays for the first score of the game, which came on an 11-yard run by Santos. Lawrence answered almost immediately when Valerio found Rainer Almonte all by himself for a 61-yard touchdown pass on the third play of the ensuing drive.A 50-yard pass from Valerio to Justin Rivera (8 catches-173 yards, 2 TDs) set up a 5-yard throw to Rivera to give the Lancers a 14-7 lead with 47 seconds left in the first quarter. Peabody scored on its next possession, another long (66 yards; 9 plays) march that culminated with a 1-yard touchdown run by Wlasuk.The Tanners took the lead back when Raymond found Moquin (5 catches-87 yards) on a fly route down the left sideline. Moquin dragged two defenders to the goal line and then scored when the scrum ended up in the end zone. Lawrence answered back quickly again, with Valerio hitting Rivera for 23 yards and then for a 36-yard touchdown pass on a blown coverage to give the Lancers a 22-19 lead at halftime.A much less frantic third quarter featured only one good scoring opportunity, a 32-yard field gal attempt by Peabody’s Patrick Tuohy that was blocked.”I’m not sure what happened on that,” Bettencourt said. “I’ll have to look at the film. But that could have been the difference in the game. As I said, it comes down to execution, and they executed more plays than we did tonight.”