PEABODY — Don’t try to convince Mark Bettencourt or Chris Carroll these late-season, non-playoff games are meaningless. Their teams competed their butts off Friday night at Coley Lee Field, with Lynn English coming out ahead, 28-27.
“At the end of the day, it’s high school football,” said Carroll, whose Bulldogs finally squeaked one out after two straight weeks of agonizing defeats to Tewksbury and Billerica.
“These kids love the game. They want to play.”
“Our kids really battled,” said Bettencourt, whose Tanners fell to 2-8 heading into their Thanksgiving game against Saugus. “It was a good fight, with two good offensive teams. We knew they could put a lot of points up on the board.”
But try as the Tanners might, they couldn’t stop English’s Sam Ofurie. The burly junior running back ran for 207 yards on 24 carries. The biggest part of that — 154 yards on 13 carries — came in the first half when he was absolutely unstoppable. He scored all three English first-half touchdowns, one of a 30-yard run during which he just bulldozed his way through everybody.
It took a while for the English offense to get going. Peabody scored touchdowns on its first two possessions to take a 14-0 lead. On the first one, the Tanners went methodically down field, with quarterback Krisli Miralca — one of two signal-callers Bettencourt used interchangeably — connected with Angel Paulino for a 35-yard strike. Paulino left the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury.
On Peabody’s second possession, Cam Cuzzi ran one in from 12 yards out. Joseph Swanton made both kicks.
Then English started coming back. Ofurie announced his presence with a rumbling 50-yard rush down the far sideline and then, two plays later, ran it in from the 10. Tyler Drinan, perfect on four PAT attempts, added the point.
Ofurie was back in the second quarter with a 30-yard line-buster to tie the score.
Before the half ended, both teams scored again. The Tanners made it 21-14 on Paulino’s 20-yard run, but on the last play of the half, Ofurie’s 8-yard run tied the score.
If the first half was all scoring, the second half was a struggle. Peabody figured out a way to keep Ofurie from breaking off two many long runs, while the Tanners were hurt badly by penalties. In all, they had 15 to four against English. One of them weighed heavily on the outcome.
English was driving for the go-ahead score when Peabody had apparently stopped the Bulldogs on a fourth-down play from the Tanner 23. But a late flag signaled interference, and gave English new life. Two plays after that, Bettencourt, still agitated, drew an unsportsmanlike penalty call, which took the ball only four yards from the 8-yard line to the four. Two plays later, Matthias Fowler’s keeper gave English a 28-21 lead.
Despite all that had happened, Peabody was undaunted. Colby Therrien raced 36 yards for the score. However, a penalty pushed Peabody back 15 yards for the PAT attempt, and it sailed wide to the left, and it was 28-27 with 5:35 to go. Peabody never saw the ball again, as English closed out the game in the victory formation.
“Hats off to our offense for never giving them the ball back,” Carroll said. “The victory formation is always the best play of the game.”
English, 6-4, faces Classical on Thanksgiving (10).
