SOMERVILLE — After a 5-6 finish last season, Peabody football coach Mark Bettencourt made it clear that his team would mean business in 2017. Friday night at Somerville’s Dilboy Stadium, it was the Highlanders that were all business in a 24-7 win over the Tanners.
After Somerville fumbled on the first play of the game, Tanners running back Eric DeMayo scored Peabody’s first touchdown of the season on a three-yard run. Austin Legget’s PAT kick was good and Peabody led 7-0 with 6:55 to play in the first quarter.
“That’s exactly what we were looking for,” Bettencourt said. “That’s what we were hoping would motivate us and put points on the board. From that point on, we had trouble finding holes. The holes were moving because they were shooting gaps and we didn’t do a very good job adjusting.”
From there, it was all Somerville. The Highlanders knotted things up on a one-yard touchdown run by Fred Castin with 6:50 left in the second quarter. Emerson Klemz added the PAT kick. A pair of Peabody fumbles resulted in field goals of 16 and 32 yards made by Klemz in the final minute of the half. At recess, Somerville led 13-7.
“That took the momentum away from us,” Bettencourt said. “We talked about that at halftime, how we had to get the momentum back with a good drive.”
DeMayo opened the second half with a 38-yard carry to lead Peabody into Somerville territory, but the senior fumbled two plays later to end the drive. Both teams were kept off the board in the third quarter.
With 6:50 left in the fourth, Klemz booted a 27-yard field goal through the uprights to extend Somerville’s lead to 16-7. The key play of the drive was a 65-yard pass from Highlanders quarterback Elijah Jeffreys to receiver Lucas Saint-Jean. Three minutes later, Jeffreys found Saint-Jean again on a 23-yard touchdown pass to ice the win.
“Somerville looked very good,” Bettencourt said. “I was very impressed with them. We didn’t have much film on them, so we kind of went off what they did last year. It was similar to what they did last year. There are no excuses there, their athletes beat our athletes.”
Moving forward, the Tanners will hope to improve on their physicality in hopes of earning their first win of the season. Peabody’s young and inexperienced up front but Bettencourt’s confident the team will make the necessary improvements soon.
“I think Somerville manhandled us up front,” Bettencourt said. “We have some young kids in there. They have to get better and they will. I think some of our kids had the ‘deer in the headlights’ look. They’ll get better as the year progresses.”
Peabody now shifts its focus to preparing for next Friday night’s home game against Danvers.
“Danvers is physical,” Bettencourt said. “We’ll find the right combination. We have a lot film we can watch and we’ll find out who can play varsity football and who needs some more time. We’ll have that figured out, hopefully, by next week.”
