Magic Runs Out for Marblehead (VIDEO)

Just as Wakefield ran out the clock in their one-point win over Marblehead Tuesday night, a light rain began to fall at Manning Field, which seemed like an appropriate ending to the Magicians' first-round exit from the playoffs.

With the Magicians clinging to a 6-0 lead late in the game, Wakefield quarterback James Bourque threaded the needle between two Marblehead defenders, hitting Matt McKenna at the one-yard line with 1:57 left in the fourth quarter. Josh Puccio slugged his way into the end zone on the next play, and Brian Auld’s extra point put Wakefield up 7-6 with 1:52 remaining.

Marblehead took over with 1:47 to play, picked up a couple of first downs, but facing a fourth and 10 from their own 43 yard line with 49 seconds left, quarterback Ian Magg’s pass was picked off by Bobby Wardwell, and the Warriors were off to Saturday’s Super Bowl against the winner of the Dennis-Yarmouth/Walpole game.

“We win as a team, we lose as a team,” Marblehead’s John Perry said. “They’ve been telling us that since third grade, we played hard, but we didn’t get the results we were looking for.”

Marblehead (8-3) started fast, flying out of the gate on an 18-yard kickoff return by Matt Millett to get things going seven seconds into the game. Five plays and 71 yards later, Will Quigley was in the end zone and Marblehead was up by six. Quigley took it in from the four at 7:54; the PAT was wide to the left.

Marblehead stopped Wakefield cold on their first drive of the game, knocking the ball out of Puccio’s hands at the Marblehead 32. Kyle McCormack recovered the fumble for Marblehead.

Puccio’s drop was one of three Wakefield turnovers in the game; unfortunately, the Headers couldn’t do anything with Wakefield’s generosity.

“The team in black was doing a lot to help us win, and the team in Black was keeping us from blowing the game open,” head coach Jim Rudloff said. “We shot ourselves in the foot, a lot, and we did a lot of things that were uncharacteristic of the way we’ve played over the last five ballgames.”

“That’s a tough football team, they had us back on our heels for, two, three quarters,” Wakefield coach Mike Boyages said. “Our guy, (quarterback James Bourque) bailed us out late, he’s been great for us all season. “

Up by six points, the Magicians got a big play from Zac Cuzner when he stepped in front of a Bourque pass to start the second quarter. Marblehead failed to capitalize, and gave the ball back to Wakefield, Quigley pinning the Warriors down at their own three with a great punt.

The Warriors gave the ball right back to the Magicians, Tom Koopman got a hand on a Bourque pass with 53 seconds left in the half tipping it to John Perry, but the Magicians couldn’t take advantage of the turnover.

The two teams played error-free football until Wakefield started their winning drive with 5:15 left in the game; their possession was not without controversy.

“They had 12 men on the field on our punt,” Rudloff said. “They call that penalty at that time, it’s a different situation.”

Wakefield (10-2) converted a third and 10 to keep the drive alive, and four plays later they were in the end zone.

“I just feel so bad for the seniors,” quarterback Ian Maag said.  “We worked so hard all year, our defense was great tonight, our offense just couldn’t capitalize when we needed to, it’s incredibly disappointing, this was not the result we hoped for.”

“They’re a big, physical team and they kept coming at us, it’s too bad, it could have been us moving on,” Maag said.

“Wakefield is a great team, they played well, but I don’t think we played our best game tonight and it hurt us,” Rudloff said. “Our defense did a great job forcing turnovers but we just couldn’t convert when we got the ball, we didn’t do a lot of the little things that got us where we were tonight, and it’s disappointing.”

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