Marblehead Devours Swampscott 51-13 By Chris Thomsen

For all of its impressive talent and overwhelming performances, Marblehead has had difficulty executing in big games over the last two years. In 2012 the undefeated Magicians lost to the future Super Bowl champions, Beverly, at Hurd Field. Two weeks later, the Swampscott Big Blue took down Marblehead in an upset for the ages.

A similar story appeared to be developing this season. After two solid wins in the playoffs, the Magicians lost in the closing minutes against Tewksbury almost two weeks ago in the Division 3 North title game.

As the Magicians took their home field on Thanksgiving morning, they were determined to learn from those experiences. They wasted no time in taking out their frustrations on their cross-town rival.

Their defense shut down Swampscott while Brooks Tyrrell ran for six touchdowns as the Magicians cruised to a 51-13 victory over the Big Blue.

Tyrrell dominated from the start, carrying the ball for all six plays of a 58-yard drive as the Magicians grabbed a 7-0 lead with 7:11 left in the first quarter. Tyrell’s rushing forced Swampscott’s safeties to approach the line of scrimmage on the next drive, allowing Marblehead quarterback Matt Millett to find Jeremy Gillis for a 78-yard touchdown pass with 1:27 remaining in the first quarter. Three more Tyrrell touchdowns resulted in a 32-0 lead at halftime.

The Magicians took a 39-0 lead on another Tyrrell carry five plays into the second half. Two plays later, Swampscott quarterback Brendan McDonald’s first pass of the half was intercepted by Spencer Craig, who returned it 59 yards for another six points. The game was sealed at that point, though Tyrrell did run for another 77-yard touchdown with 6:09 remaining in the third quarter.

The Big Blue couldn’t execute on either side of the ball. Running back Desmond Wilhelmsen had difficulty getting past the line of scrimmage, mirroring his team’s performance in a previous loss to Marblehead last month. McDonald couldn’t find his targets due to heavy pressure from the Magicians’ defensive line, resulting in four interceptions. And there wasn’t much that Swampscott could do to stop Tyrrell’s running.

But there were some positives for the Big Blue. McDonald threw two touchdowns, one to Cam Frary and the other to Wilhelmsen. Swampscott coach Steve Dembowski was also quick to give credit to Toby Hale and Christian Llorente on defense.

In the end, the day belonged to Marblehead. One of the major complaints of the new high school playoff system was that the Thanksgiving Day games would lose meaning. Based on this performance Thursday morning, however, it was clear that this game meant everything to the Magicians.

Patch will have more articles concerning Thursday’s game in the next few days. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!