PEABODY — Sometimes, to win a big football game a team needs to switch things up. Unfortunately for the ground-and-pound Peabody Tanners, an attempt to become a passing team led to four interceptions and a 35-7 loss to the Masconomet Chieftains at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Friday night.
Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt said the plan to change things up came from some things they saw on film during the week of preparation, and it just didn’t work out.
“When you’re a team that likes to run and you see that the best way to try to win is to throw, you’re doing something you don’t normally do and it’s tough,” Bettencourt said. “We practiced it as much as we could. We’re a ground-and-pound team, but we saw their size would be an issue so we tried to go over and around it. But when we did, they made some big plays.”
The Tanners actually got off to a quick start, scoring on the very first drive of the game. After getting the ball at his own 39-yard line, senior quarterback Jonell Espinal (11-for-20, 152 yards, TD, 3 INT) led the drive through the air, completing 3-of-5 passes for 47 yards. He capped off the drive with a beautiful 30-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver Elijah White to give Peabody the early lead.
“I really liked the way Jonell threw the ball with confidence tonight,” Bettencourt said. “He was really driving the ball in there, but we needed some breaks and we didn’t get them. A ball off Eljiah’s shoulder pads turns into a pick, another pass just misses Elijah’s fingers, things like that. It’s a tough way to lose, but that’s football.”
Masco responded right away with its powerful ground attack. Peter Kitsakos and Jay Theriault combined for 77 yards on the drive, although Kitsakos had 53 of those yards on a big touchdown run to tie the game. The Chieftans then got their first interception on the ensuing Peabody drive and scored in quick fashion on a four-yard touchdown run from Dan Monagle. The same thing happened on the next drive, with Masconomet grabbing an interception once again. This time, it only took one play for the Chieftans to score, as Kitsakos took a ball around the right side 69 yards.
The bad luck kept snowballing for Peabody, as they went three-and-out on the next drive and gave the ball right back. On Masconomet’s first play, quarterback Matt Brockelman hit Monagle for a 55-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-7.
The second half only saw one touchdown scored when Monagle scored a four-yard touchdown at the end of a massive 19-play, 77-yard drive by Masconomet that took 11:48 off the clock between the third and fourth quarter.
Now at 1-4 on the season, Peabody needs to win its final two games in order to even have a chance at the playoffs.
“The unfortunate thing is that with this loss, we took our destiny out of our own hands,” Bettencourt said. “Now we’ve got to rely on other people to lose and stuff like that, and you never want to be in that position. But we’ll regroup and try to come back strong in these final two weeks and see what happens from there.”
Peabody visits Malden next Friday night.
