PEABODY — The Peabody High football team’s offensive woes continue to grow, but there may be a glimmer of hope.
In a rare Saturday night game at Coley Lee Field, the Tanners fell behind early to visiting Marblehead, which ran the coat tails of receiver Derek Marino, a true one-man band if ever there was one, on their way to a 21-7 loss.
The good news for the Tanners was they finally scored a touchdown after going going nearly 130 straight minutes without one (or any other points, for that matter). More good news was the fact that Tanners had the Magicians’ number in the second half, shutting them out, and also showed signs of finally to be able to generate sustained drives of their own.
The bad news, however was the big man, Marino who was unstoppable, making seven catches for 159 yards in the first half alone, accounting for well over half of the Magicians’ 255 total yards on the evening. Just four plays into the game, he staked Marblehead to a 7-0 lead, hauling in a 64-yard bomb from quarterback Dewey Millett. On the Magicians’ next possession, Marino made it 14-0 with a 17-yard reception, again from Millett.
“We knew he was a matchup problem and Marblehead did a good job putting him in spots where we had to have different guys covering him,” said Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt. “He had a great game, and give their QB (Millett) credit because he threw it where only their kid could catch it.”
But after that, a funny thing happened. Peabody’s trademark defense kicked in and was virtually impenetrable the rest of the game, holding Marblehead to negative yardage on three of its next four possessions to go into halftime trailing 21-0. The only possession to generate any yardage came after a special teams miscue when a snap on a Peabody sailed over punter’s Declan Russell’s head deep in Peabody territory. He was brought down at the Tanner 9-yard line, where Devin Romain punched it into the end zone to make it a 21-0 ball game.
Offensively, however, the Tanners simply could not move the ball in the first half with only 41 yards of offense to the Magicians’ 187. Their longest play from scrimmage was a 13-yard completion from lefty quarterback Colby Therrien to Elijah White, Of seven possessions, four ended with 3-and-out punts, one ended on downs after a 31-yard 8-play drive stalled and another ended on an interception on the first play of that drive.
Therrien and Jonell Espinal alternated possessions for Peabody at quarterback.
“Going with two quarterbacks gives us the ability to have Colby roll naturally to his left and either run or throw and d the same with Jonell going to his right, that was the thought process,” said Bettencourt. “But tonight, neither one of the them had any time to do anything but run for their lives. No matter who was out there, they just weren’t getting any protection at all in the first half when he tried to spread things even though at times, they were only rushing three.”
The second half, however, Peabody went old-school, ground-and-pound, a look that Bettencourt said might be seen more often in future games.
“We have to find something that can work offensively and we have to find a way to score” said Bettencourt. “We couldn’t trap, we couldn’t pull and we were getting blown off the ball. Marblehead’s defensive line won the surge and moved the line of scrimmage backwards. That can’t happen if we’re going to be successful.”
Peabody took the opening kickoff of the second half and drove 44 yards (all but 7 on the ground) to the Magicians’ 25-yard line. The drive, which took nearly nine minutes off the clock, featured two fourth-and-short conversions, the first from the Tanners won 27, as well as a third-and-short conversion. Facing fourth-and-3 at the Magicians’ 27, Noah Freedman (13 carries for 51 yards) came up inches short of a first down, turning the ball over on downs to Marblehead.
Taking a page out of the Tanners’ playbook, Marblehead went to the ground and got down to the Peabody 9-yard line where a sack for an 8-yard loss by Eric DeMayo and Sean Bell forced the Magicians back to the 17-yard line, where they missed a field goal attempt with 7:36 remaining in the game.
Peabody finally scored on the final drive of the game. The Tanners converted a big fourth-and-9 at the Marblehead 38 on a 30-yard pitch pass by DeMayo (12 carries, 31 yards) to Elijah White (3 catches for 45 yards, 7 carries for 19 yards). Therrien punched it home from the 1-yard line on a quarterback sneak to get Peabody on the board for the first time since opening day.
“Get ready to see more of what you saw in the second half. We have to find something that works for us and what you saw in the second half, the possession game, just pounding the ball on the ground, ball control and keeping the other team’s offense off the field worked for us,” said Bettencourt.
Marblehead improved to 3-0 with the win and has won 15 straight Northeastern Conference games and 14 straight in the regular season, but head coach Jim Rudloff says the Magicians aren’t going anywhere soon unless they find a way to get more players into the offensive mix, especially Marblehead’s next opponent, Beverly.
“You know, 21 points won’t do it against a team that just scored 53,” Rudloff said. “Our offense is operating like a bicycle with a broken chain and a flat tire right now and we have to do something about it. Derek played a great game and he was our whole offense, but unfortunately that’s not good and doesn’t bode well for the future. If any team can figure out how to stop Derek then they stop us right now.”
Peabody has a short week to recover with a game at Revere (0-3) Thursday night.
