PEABODY —The Marblehead High School football Magicians beat Peabody, 35-14, Friday night to keep their perfect record. MHS has now won six straight!
The Current’s Luca Tedesco was at the game and checked in with Coach Jim Rudloff after the last play.
Sparked by a monster second half performance by senior running back Breydan Callahan the Marblehead Magicians remained undefeated with a 35-14 win over the Peabody Tanners at Peabody Veterans Memorial Stadium on Friday night.
“[It was a] classic trap game,” said Marblehead head coach Jim Rudloff postgame. “Once again, we kind of had to put our foot on the gas in the second half. That’s not going to be good enough going forward.”
After forcing the Tanners three-and-out on the opening drive of the game, the Magicians offense slowly matriculated their way into the red zone, primarily using their vaunted rushing attack to gain yards.
Callahan seemed to score his eighth touchdown of the year on a 16-yard rush, but the points were wiped off the board due to a penalty. A second foul on the drive pushed the Magicians back to fourth and 15 from the 31. Rudloff elected to go for it on fourth down, but the no-win situation of long yardage on a short field would end in Finn Gallup’s second interception in two games.
The turnover would cost the Magicians six points as the Tanners drove 64 yards to the end zone in six-and-a-half minutes to put the first points on the board midway through the second quarter.
Marblehead’s offense came back on the field with purpose, quickly driving their way into Peabody territory. Gallup, forced to scramble out of the pocket on a broken play, found a wide open Tim Wales in the back of the end zone to give the visitors the lead with under five minutes remaining in the half.
After making a major third down stop, the Magicians would kick the hurry-up offense into high gear. The late-second quarter drive was highlighted by a 56-yard heave by Gallup to Owen Coyne who stumbled down at the eight-yard line. The potential insurance touchdown would never come, however, as a Peabody defender punched the ball out of the grasp of Finn Gallup to keep the score at 7-6 heading to halftime.
Marblehead came out of the break on a mission. The Magicians’ playcalls force fed the ball to Breydan Callahan, who would make up for 54 of the Headers’ 77-yard opening drive that was capped by a five yard gallop by Gallup to the goal line.
The wind was immediately taken out of Marblehead’s sails as Peabody’s special teams unit matched the Magicians with a 90-yard kickoff return touchdown that was followed up by a successful two-point try to tie the game at 14-all.
Marblehead’s next two offensive possessions, each ending in Callahan rushing touchdowns, finally put the Tanners away. The senior would finish with 167 rushing yards for the game, 125 of which came in the second half.
Trent Brown would put the exclamation point on the ballgame with an unbelievable one handed grab in the endzone to make the score 35-14 and cement Marblehead at 6-0 with two games remaining in the regular season.
The undefeated Magicians will face their toughest opponent yet this season when they take on the 6-1 Masconomet Chieftains in Boxford next Friday evening at 6:30 p.m.
