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Salem (MA) Witches Football '18

Salem slips past Whittier

HAVERHILL — Having been delayed 30 hours by a Nor’easter, neither Salem nor Whittier Tech were able to comfortably settle in on a rare Sunday afternoon outing of football.
 
The visiting Witches, however, did manage to find the end zone on the last play of the third quarter and held on for a 7-0 victory over the Wildcats in a nonplayoff game.
 
“Every day is a good day for football,” Salem coach Matt Bouchard said. “It was obviously a little different with a 3:30 start on Sunday. But how it all played out for our guys, I thought they handled it real well with all the changes.”
 
In a game that saw more penalties (19) than first downs (18), both teams had trouble gaining yardage although Salem (4-4) went 62 yards on 13 plays on their first possession which lasted 6:53.
 
But the Witches were unable to capitalize on a first-and-goal from the 4. A motion penalty on third down left them at the 7 when Jayco Payne hauled in a pass from Jeffrey Holloway but immediately was tackled just shy of the goal line. That’s when a Whittier front led by Josh Rousseau, Carlos Then-Torres and Joe Cahill piled on Salem running back Sam-Lauren O’Furie inside the 1.
“That was awesome,” Whittier coach Kevin Bradley said of the stand. “I thought we could get some momentum from that. But we’d get a first down then go back with penalties. We’d get a first down and we’d go back by penalties. I just couldn’t believe all that.”
Salem would have only one more possession in the half, which stalled at the 28.
“(Whittier) did a great job in the red zone there,” Bouchard said. “We got the ball down inside the 1 and they stopped us … But I think that added a little fuel for the guys in the locker room. I had some leadership guys take over, and their motivation obviously changed there in the second half.”
Salem, which will play at Shawsheen (3-5) this week, would score the game’s only points with 6 seconds left in the third on a 7-yard pass from Holloway to Pena.
“These guys play football because they love the game,” Bouchard said. “We’re trying to develop every day and get a little bit. Today we worked real hard trying to develop and for a lot of these guys, that’s a big deal.”
Whittier (3-5) continued a recent trend of struggling with its usually solid rushing attack, gaining only 113 yards on the ground – 137 fewer than its season average. But it also held the Witches to 127 rushing yards as the teams combined for 299 yards of total offense – only 128 yards more than they combined for in penalties. The Wildcats will play host to Brighton (2-6) this week.
“Playing against a big school like (Salem), that plays against Division 2 teams (in the Northeastern Conference) and our kids came out and played right with them,” Bradley said. “And the kids feel very good and confident about themselves.”
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Football, 10/28/18 » 0 Comments & 0.0 Stars