LYNN — There were two speeches in the Beverly High football locker room at halftime following an unsatisfying first half of football Friday night against host Lynn Classical.
The first came from head coach Jeff Hutton. The second came from the players themselves.
The combination of the two certainly resonated as the Panthers turned things completely around in the second half. Behind two touchdown passes from quarterback Tommy Collins, 150 yards rushing and another score from Sean Okhuozagbon, and a defense that refused to yield, the Orange-and-Black shut out the Rams, 21-0, at Manning Field.
“We both knew that first half wasn’t us,” said Okhuozagbon, whose 17-yard touchdown run around right end sealed the victory for Beverly (2-1) with 51 seconds to go. “We weren’t running as hard as we should’ve and not getting enough stops on the defensive side. We all agreed: ‘We’re better than this. Let’s just go out (in the second half) and do what we came here to do.'”
That’s exactly what Beverly did. After running just 10 offensive plays for 43 yards over the first 24 minutes of action, the Panthers scored on three of their four offensive possessions in the second half, churning out 183 yards and 13 first downs.
That was the polar offense of the first two quarters, when host Lynn Classical (0-3) dominated both possession (17:58 of the opening 24 minutes) and yardage-wise, but couldn’t push one over the goal line.
That included an almost unthinkable 22-play drive by the host Rams that ate up 12 minutes and one second off the clock, but Beverly came up huge on 4th-and-1 from their own 5-yard line when Prince Olowu and Will Johnson combined to stuff him for no gain.
“We made that a lot harder than it had to be,” admitted Beverly head coach Jeff Hutton, whose team shut out Lynn Classical for the first time since 1992 (32-0).
“Classical had a great game plan: ‘We’re going to lean on you (with massive left guard Renzo Diroche (6-5, 375 lbs.) and right guard Michael Benitez (6-1, 310 lbs.); good luck.’ We were getting too low at first before we adjusted and got under them, and our linebackers starting coming downhill. And our offense really got untracked in the second half.”
Okhuozagbon’s 88-yard kickoff return for a score to open the third quarter was called back due to a penalty, but the Panthers remained steadfast. Moving 75 yards in nine plays, they picked up five first downs on the drive — the last of those coming when Collins found Stephan Sullivan (out of a trips formation left) on a post route from 25 yards out.
With the offensive line — notably captains Isaiah Zohn, Teddy Fisher and, on the tight end side, Joao Reis — establishing pushback as the game wore on, Beverly increased its lead to 14-0 on its next drive. On the first play of the fourth quarter when Jordan Downey capped off a seven-play, 83-yard drive by catching a fade pass in the left corner of the end zone from 11 yards out. Collins then ran in the two-point conversion.
“I didn’t think I’d be throwing that much tonight because of the wind,” said Collins, “but when you run the ball well, good things happen and you bring the defense up and can go over top of them.
“If they were going to bring their safety down, we knew we could do some damage there,” Collins continued of his first scoring toss to Sullivan. “And that fade to Jordan was all about chemistry; he and I have worked together the last two years, and I know he’s a great jump ball guy. I trust him and he trusts me.”
Senior Brody Lehmann (“he had 5-6 tackles and gave our defense a real spark in the second half,” said Hutton) recovered a Classical fumble late in the fourth quarter, setting up Okhuozagbon’s backbreaking TD run in the final minute.
“Teams aren’t afraid of us, and we haven’t earned that yet. But it’s good that we recovered and had a really good second half,” said Hutton.
“The great thing about this team,” added Okhuozagbon, “is that we all trust each other. We know if everyone does their 1/11th, we can find a way to get the job done.”
Beverly 21, Lynn Classical 0
at Manning Field, Lynn
Beverly (2-1);0;0;6;15;21
Lynn Classical (0-3);0;0;0;0;0
Scoring summary
B — Stephan Sullivan 25 pass from Tommy Collins (kick failed)
B — Jordan Downey 11 pass from Collins (Collins rush)
B — Sean Okhuozagbon 17 run (Tyler Singelais kick)
Individual Statistics
RUSHING: Beverly — Sean Okhuozagbon 20-150, Jayden Hernandez 3-30, Tommy Collins 5-19, Charlie Frost 2-3; Lynn Classical — Tidus Houen 12-60, Emerson Lara Castro 11-53, Mark Walsh 12-29, Kalu Nasky 8-21, Snider Bourdeau 2-3.
PASSING: Beverly — Collins 3-4-53-2-0; Lynn Classical — Walsh 0-2-0-0-0, Nasky 1-1-(-2)-0-0.
RECEIVING: Beverly — Jordan Downey 2-28, Stephan Sullivan 1-25; Lynn Classical — Walsh (1-2).