Blue Win Sets up Title Tilt on Thanksgiving

Moms in and Marblehead will be hard-pressed to get anyone to the dinner table before 1 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

There’s a big football game at Piper Field at 10 a. m., with the winner headed to the playoffs.

Swampscott (9-1) and Marblehead (7-2), both 4-0 in league play square off with the winner moving on, the loser staying home.

Marblehead earned their spot with a win over Beverly Friday night.

Swampscott set up the Turkey Day clash by slamming Gloucester Saturday afternoon at Blocksidge Field, 33-15.

It wasn’t a great start for the Blue; they fell behind 7-0 on a touchdown run by Kyle Lucido with 4:33 left in the first quarter — the Fishermen capitalizing on a Big Blue fumble.

Gloucester was moving in for another score, after another Swampscott turnover, when A. J. Baker picked up a fumble by Lucido and raced 87 yards to cut the lead to 7-6.

“We were a bit sloppy at first,” Big Blue coach Steve Dembowski said. “That play by A. J. was huge, we would have been in a deep hole if they scored again.”

It took most of the first half for Swampscott’s offense to click, but it did, and the Blue went into halftime up 19-7.

Mike Walsh hit Richard Sullivan for six points to make it 12-6 with 6:52 left in the second quarter.

Gloucester drove to the Swampscott  5-yard line, stalling out on fourth and goal on a solid team defensive stand by the Big Blue defense with 47 seconds left in the first half.

Swampscott drove 94 yards down the field in 44 seconds, to the 1-yard line with three seconds left in the half. Walsh hit Baker in the far corner of the end zone as time expired and Nick Meninno’s PAT sent the home team to the locker room up 19-7 on Senior Day at Blocksidge Field.

“This game was huge for us to win, our last game on this field, we’ve been playing here since we were six, seven years old,” Baker said. “Gloucester’s a good team they played us very tough early on, we really came out with some intensity after we fell behind.”

Walsh hit Meninno for a 4-yard touchdown on the first drive of the second half, Meninno tacked on the PAT, and the Blue were up by 19 at 26-7 with 9:57 left in the third quarter.

Swampscott made it 33-7 when Walsh hit Baker for the receivers’ 12th touchdown of the season with 8:51 left in the game.

“We’d like to play tomorrow if we could,” Baker said. “Marblehead’s a great team and we’ve got some time to prepare, I’m really looking forward to it.”

Carlo Cracchiolo scored a late touchdown, and a two-point conversion to make the final 33-15.

“This is such an important day for us, the seniors, the team,” Sam Gold said. “We’ve been playing here since we were little kids and this was a great way to go out today, beating Gloucester.”

“Man, I can not wait for Thanksgiving,” Mike Walsh said. “Gloucester played us very physical to start and it took us some time to get going today, it was a slow start for us for sure.”

“A great game for our seniors, they’re a great bunch of kids, they work really hard, and they’re great leaders,” Dembowski said. “I’m proud of them, they’ve beaten every team in the league since they’ve been playing with this win over Gloucester.”

“This is an exciting time for us, this was our goal since we began in August, to win our league and get into the playoffs,” Dembowski said. “We made some adjustments in the passing game and were able to come out ahead today.”

Zach Kalapinski, Mark Ritterboon, Patrick Sheehan, Matt Gambale and Joe DeSalvo made life difficult for Gloucester’s offense all day.

“Our defense did a nice job today and we’re going to have to bring our A game when we play Marblehead,” Dembowski said.