PEABODY — If nothing else, Friday night’s Northeastern Conference clash at Coley Lee Field between Peabody (1-3) and Revere (2-2), which went right down to the wire before the Patriots survived a wild final couple of minutes to hold on for a 27-25 win, had something for everybody.
“I’ve been coaching for 30 years and no doubt about it, this was the hardest game I’ve ever coached,” said Revere coach Louis Cicatelli. “We lost four starters in this game and were already down three starters coming into the game, but our kids responded. They were tough, they were scrappy and there was no quit in them. Peabody was bigger than us and our biggest problem was trying to counter their power game running off tackle, but I cannot say enough about the kids who stepped up. Darius McNeil and Lucas Barbosa (6-yard TD) ran the ball unbelievable tonight and Jonathan Murphy (three TD’s) came up big with those quarterback sneaks.”
The Tanners handed the first half to Revere on a silver platter thanks to several ill-timed and costly penalties along with three fumbles, which helped a severely undermanned Revere team to build a 20-6 lead at halftime and 27-13 lead going into the final quarter.
But Peabody battled back and made a game of it, cutting the deficit to just eight points, 27-19 with a little under 10 minutes to play after a 3-yard touchdown run by Angel Paulino (three rushing TDs), set up by a 57-yard screen pass from quarterback Matt Jandrisevits to Colby Therrien that gave the Tanners 1st-and-goal from the 3.
From that point on, it was Revere’s game to win, but the Patriots nearly didn’t close the deal.
After the Tanners had driven to the Patriots’ 22-yard line, the drive stalled and Revere got the ball back on downs. Darius McNeil picked up 19 yards on a couple of rushes to move the ball out to the Patriots’ 22 with about 1:45 to go, but two plays later quarterback Jonathan Murphy fumbled the ball with Peabody Abe Kaba recovering at the Revere 35-yard line with 1:18 to go. Five plays later, Angel Paulino punched it in from the 3-yard line to make it 27-25 with 21 seconds left.
But in perhaps the biggest defensive stand of the night, the Patriots denied Jandrisevits on the 2-point conversion attempt up the middle to seemingly seal the victory.
Not so fast, said Peabody, thanks to a perfectly executed onside kick by Austin Leggett. By the time the last player was peeled off the pile, Joshua Tanzer emerged with the ball, giving Peabody another last-gasp chance with to pull out a victory with the ball on the Revere 43 with just 18 ticks left on the game clock.
Another Jandrivesitz to Russell connection and a couple of incompletions advanced the ball to the Patriots’ 35, bringing on the Tanners’ field goal unit to attempt a 52-yarder with seven seconds left, but the snap was bobbled.
At 1-3, the Tanners’ backs are up against it in terms of playoffs.
“We’ve had some teams at 1-3 that made it and some teams that didn’t, but we need to depend on other people now,” said Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt. “I was proud of the kids for their resiliency tonight, but we had so many defensive mistakes that really hurt us. The mistakes killed us.”
