Magicians Beat Beverly on Senior Night [VIDEO]

The Beverly Panthers won't be ending this season with a Super Bowl title like they did in 2010. The Marblehead Magicians made sure of that Friday night, holding off the visitors 13-12 in a slugfest at .

“We had to have this game, we needed this game, everybody picked us to lose this game before it was played, so we came in with a lot of fire in our bellies," Will Quigley said. "We’re 4 and 0 now, with two games to win to get to the Super Bowl."

Quigley was his usual monster self Friday night. He scored two touchdowns, with another called back after a procedure penalty, he was in on more than ten tackles and he pinned Beverly deep in their own end with good punts. 

As if that wasn't enough, Quigley picked off a Dave Rollins pass late in the first quarter and returned it deep into enemy territory.

Marblehead (4-0 league, 7-2 overall) came into Friday night’s game fresh off of two blowouts over and , and head coach Jim Rudloff said it was good to get into a battle with Beverly.

“It was more exciting than it had to be, that’s for sure,” Rudloff said. “We needed to get into a fistfight, like the Newburyport game, and really slug it out with someone, and we slugged it out tonight, for sure.”

Marblehead scored first, going up 6-0 when Quigley ripped the ball out of Brendan Flaherty’s hands in front of the Beverly bench and sprinted into the near corner of the end zone.  Quigley covered 50 yards on the play with nine minutes left in the first quarter.

Flaherty got those six points back at 6:06, the PAT was no good and the game was tied.

Marblehead took over with 6:03 left to play and Quigley was back in the end zone, capping off a six-play drive with a 27-yard touchdown run. Christian Flores booted the extra point to put the home team ahead 13-6.

Quigley ran the ball in from the four with 42 seconds left in the half, but the score was wiped out on a procedure penalty, a call that infuriated the home fans. Instead of being up by two scores, the Magicians had third and eight from the Beverly nine yard line and could not punch it in, but were still up by seven at halftime.

The teams swapped possessions until late in the fourth quarter, when Beverly got a huge break. Quarterback Ian Maag lost the ball inside the 10, and Flaherty scooped it up and ran into the end zone to make it 13-12 with 5:39 left in the game.

“That was a sub-optimal outcome on that play that’s for sure,” Maag said. “The defense bailed me out after that, they were huge stopping the two-point conversion.”

Beverly went for the win, trailing 13-12, Rollins handing off to Flaherty who was swamped by black shirts at the three-yard line. Marblehead’s John Perry, Rajive Alcindor and Jeffrey Peras all got on top of Flaherty before he could get into the end zone.

“I wasn’t surprised they went for two, they needed a win,” Rudloff said. “Credit to our defense for making a big stop.”

After a Magician possession, Marblehead forced Beverly into a four and out; the home team took over and ran out the clock with 52 seconds to play.

“This was a great way to go into the Thanksgiving game,” Maag said. “I’m happy for the team and the seniors.”

“I wasn’t coming off the field tonight, this game was too important, no way I was coming off,” Quigley said. “To be 4-0 in the conference is amazing, but we want the Super Bowl, that’s our goal.”

“We knew we were in for a tough game, Beverly and Swampscott are two of the toughest teams we’ll play in our league, this was a gigantic win for us,” Rudloff said. “Our defense was unbelievable tonight, offensively there are things we can do better, now we have a few weeks to work on those things.”

The general consensus from the Marblehead players is they’ll be up early Saturday to watch film and lift weights, and then check out their final regular season opponent, Swampscott, when the Big Blue hosts Gloucester at noon.

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