MELROSE — In a battle of undefeated teams vying for the Division 4 North football title, something had to give. It was a close game for all four quarters, but in the end a late Melrose touchdown lifted the top-seeded Red Raiders to a 28-20 win over No. 2 Marblehead at Fred Green Memorial Field on Friday night. Melrose running back Isaac Seide gashed the Magicians defense for 242 rushing yards, including big runs of 60, 44 and 33 yards.
“It was uncharacteristic of us tonight, we made a lot of mistakes,” said Marblehead coach Jim Rudloff. “If you take away those big plays it’s a totally different game, but you can’t take them away and those plays were huge. Give credit to Melrose, they’ve got a great team and should do well moving forward, but we could’ve played much better out there.”
Melrose started off the game exactly how it wanted, engineering a 15-play, 72-yard drive mainly on the back of Seide. He touched the ball on 11 of the 15 plays, rushing for 50 yards and capping the drive with a seven-yard touchdown run to make it 7-0.
Marblehead was then stopped on two consecutive drives, including a failed fourth-down conversion play near midfield with 8:42 left in the half. It didn’t take long for the Red Raiders to capitalize on that momentum, as Seide took the ball on the first play of the drive and raced for a 60-yard touchdown to go up by two touchdowns.
But the Magicians wouldn’t quit. They put together a great sequence of drives over the final eight minutes of the half, starting with a seven-play drive that culminated in a 25-yard touchdown connection between quarterback Andy Clough and receiver Derek Marino to cut the deficit in half. Marblehead then forced a three-and-out to get the ball back with just over three minutes to go in the half.
After Marino took a punt return 55 yards to set the Magicians up inside the red zone, running back Tim Cronin tied up the game with a 5-yard touchdown run.
But they gave Melrose a little too much time, as the Red Raiders got the ball back with 1:51 to go and orchestrated a fast-paced drive of their own. After a 44-yard run from Seide set Melrose up deep in the red zone, quarterback Charlie Stanton hit receiver Gabriel Nyland for a 10-yard touchdown to take a 21-14 lead into the break.
The second half got off to an ugly start, with both teams trading turnovers and three-and-outs for much of the third quarter. Marblehead finally broke through with just 56 seconds left in the third when Clough punched in a one-yard touchdown run. But on the extra point attempt that would have tied the game, Seide burst through the line and blocked the kick to keep the score at 21-20 Melrose.
From there, Marblehead simply couldn’t move the ball enough. The Magicians got the ball back three more times in the fourth quarter, but suffered two three-and-outs. After the second three-and-out, Melrose iced the game when Seide rushed for a 33-yard touchdown with 3:29 remaining to put the score at 28-20.
For Marblehead (9-1), there’s only one thing left to do this season, and that’s beat Swampscott on Thanksgiving morning.
“There’s really nothing positive that comes from losing this game, but as a coach if you’re going to take something positive it’s the fact that we get to focus entirely on beating Swampscott at home,” Rudloff said. “We don’t have to worry about sitting or saving anyone like we did last year when we went to the Super Bowl, so we can go out there and play with all of our emotion on Thanksgiving Day.”
Marblehead and Swampscott will square off at Piper Field on Thanksgiving morning.
