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Salem football survives scare in overtime win over Peabody

Friday, October, 26 By Matt Jenkins
Staff writer

PEABODY -- The Peabody football program has been on the downswing for the past few seasons, but the Tanners showed some signs of hope against Salem last night at Coley Lee Field.

Peabody dominated play for the majority of the contest, but squandered an opportunity to push across the game-winning points late in the fourth quarter, and Salem's Melikke Van Alstyne scored his second touchdown of the game in overtime to lift the Witches to a 20-14 win.

The Tanners more than doubled Salem's play total, 66-32, and outgained the Witches, 262-157. Peabody's most impressive drive of the night was the first of the second half, where it covered 80 yards on 16 plays, capped by Tom Ciulla's 1-yard quarterback keeper. The drive not only resulted in points, it also melted 8:42 off the clock.

"They played power football and ran it down out throat," Salem coach Scott Connolly said. "They came up and down the field. My hat's off to Peabody. They played a great game."

Although the Tanners gave up size on the line, they were able to open holes for junior tailback Nick Hiou, who finished a workhorse night with 122 yards on 29 carries.

"This is Peabody football. This is what we've been trying to get them to play all year," Peabody coach Dick Woodbury said. "It's not one of those things where you say, 'We're going to go back to the drawing board.' We can just build from this and carry on next week."

The best result of Peabody's clock-killing drives last night was keeping the ball out of Van Alstyne's hands.

Salem came out of the gate attempting to share the wealth offensively, but two three-and-outs left Van Alstyne with only one touch in the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Connolly made sure Van Alstyne (18-128) got his touches.

Van Alstyne carried the ball on seven of the eight plays on Salem's first scoring drive. Van Alstyne ran for 71 yards on the drive, including a 51-yard sprint. He finished the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run.

Salem scored again before halftime on a 37-yard touchdown pass from Colby Boulay for a 14-8 lead at intermission.

"We got some touches to him and he's a playmaker; he's going to do some things. But they had the ball for the whole third quarter," Connolly said. "Coach Woodbury has said all along that they were going to bring power football back to Peabody, and they did."

Peabody scored its first touchdown on the second play of the game after recovering a fumble on the opening kickoff. Ciulla connected with Kevin Skop for a 14-yard touchdown pass, and the same duo hooked up again for the conversion.

The Tanners had a chance to win in regulation when they advanced the ball inside the Salem 10-yard line in the final minute, but couldn't score.

In overtime, it was all Van Alstyne.

The junior ripped the ball away from Ciulla on Peabody's possession, and scored on a 10-yard run on Salem's first opportunity in OT.

It was a typical Salem-Peabody matchup, according to Connolly.

"We beat Peabody one year out of the four years I played against them, so we'll take this anyway we can," Connolly said. "We're getting on our bus and getting out of here because that is a tough Peabody team."