MARBLEHEAD — They didn’t spook them, shock them or scare them.
All the Danvers High football team did on this Halloween night was go into Marblehead and beat them.
Rushing 55 times for 262 yards out of their Double Wing offense and holding onto the football for almost three times as long as their hosts, the Falcons got 165 yards and a pair of touchdowns from sophomore Zach Fultz to upset the Magicians, 21-7, on a cool, windy night at Piper Field.
“It feels great to come over here and beat them on their Senior Night,” said Danvers senior tackle Josh Gargiulo, who opened a lot of holes for Fultz to run through. “There’s nothing much else to say.”
Between Fultz and fellow wingback Jack Houston (85 yards on 17 carries), Danvers (now 6-2) just kept pushing the pile back three and four yards at a time until they got the desired result. Senior captain Mason Ellsworth at center, junior guards Cole Maylor and Logan Travers (playing for injured captain Dylan Kinney), junior Lucas McGloin and Gargiulo at the tackles, plus senior Caleb Hosler and junior Nick Xerras as the tight ends were the guys up front doing the dirty work.
The Falcons were most successful on double handoffs where the ballcarrier went up the middle, following his blockers for chunk yardage to move the chains.
“I try to drive all the defenders to one side, then cut back so I get an open gap,” said the 15-year-old Fultz, who has a team-leading 881 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns.
“This guy right here,” he continued, pointing to Gargiulo, “he’s pulling on every play and allowing me to get those tough yards.”
This was not the first time Marblehead had faced a Double Wing attack; they dispatched Shepherd Hill (35-22) earlier this season and used to go up against it when Sean Driscoll (now at St. Mary’s of Lynn) ran it during his days in Winthrop.
Saying it was “a bit embarrassing”, Marblehead veteran coach Jim Rudloff stated that line play and turnovers were the reasons his team lost its second straight Northeastern Conference game for the first time since 2012 (or 2019, if you count the year Revere was part of the NEC).
“Tonight was a mano-a-mano night, and we didn’t step up to the challenge,” said Rudloff, whose offense was limited to 180 yards total. “We match up comparably to their line, but tonight they manhandled us up front; kudos to them. They did a great job.
“It was a super uncharacteristic loss for us,” he added. “It wasn’t just one thing or being able to snap out of last week’s loss (a 45-42 defeat at Masconomet), and it wasn’t the wind. We physically just didn’t meet the challenge, and the (3) turnovers were killers.”
This was the 94th all-time meeting between the two schools, but the first time that Danvers had beaten Marblehead since 2019. The Magicians, in fact, came into Friday’s contest having won five straight between the two rivals, eight of the last nine and 17 of the prior 19 contests dating back to 2005.
“This is what we are as a team: we’re going to be physical and run the ball,” Falcons head coach Ryan Nolan said. “Our offense did a great job and really set the tone. We were opportunistic and made plays when we had to defensively, and offensively we controlled the line of scrimmage.”
In the last game of the regular season for both squads before they begin the Division 4 state playoffs next weekend, Danvers took the opening kickoff 73 yards in 14 plays, eating 8 minutes and 37 seconds off the clock as Fultz capped it off with a 2-yard run for a 7-0 lead.
Nolan said afterwards that he felt the play of the game came on that opening drive, when the Falcons were facing 3rd-and-8 on their own 29 and going into the wind. Fultz rambled for 14 yards, moving the chains.
“If we’d had to punt there into the wind, they probably get a short field and perhaps score. That would’ve changed everything,” he said. “We’re not going to play well from behind against them in these elements. So picking up that first down there changed the whole dynamic for us.”
After Marblehead (6-2) responded quickly on its own first drive, with burly back Brayden Callahan (66 yards rushing) crashing into the end zone from two yards out seconds before the first quarter ended and Finbar Bresnahan booting the point after, the Falcons went back to work. This time they methodically went 80 yards in 17 plays to hit paydirt, peeling nine minutes and 16 seconds off the scoreboard before quarterback Nate Wise snuck in from a yard out. Colby Medeiros’s extra point kick gave the Blue-and-White a 14-7 halftime lead.
“All those 4-yard runs of theirs kept adding up,” said Rudloff. “I think there were only four times that we knocked them behind the line of scrimmage; that just isn’t good enough.”
The Magicians, who had the football for one second less than seven full minutes in the second half while trying to play catch-up, hurt themselves with the second and third turnovers on the evening. The first was a fumble just over midfield that sophomore linebacker Dario Santos of Danvers fell on. The second came with Marblehead down two scores with under three minutes to play, and a pass that was tipped several times finally landed safely in the arms of the Falcons’ Medeiros.
“The type of offense they run is all about controlling the clock, so you can’t turn it over,” said Rudloff.
Danvers needed less than two minutes to punch in its final touchdown after Marblehead suffered a dropped pass on fourth down from its own 22-yard line. This time Fultz took an inside toss and glided into the end zone from two yards out, making it 21-7.
“We felt offensively we could do what we were doing. But we were scared defensively of 12 (Marblehead quarterback and captain Finn Gallup) running all over the place on the option,” admitted Nolan. “But we had some of our young guys step up and make some huge plays defensively, like (sophomore defensive tackle) Grayson Haskell stepping up with attitude and confidence and making big plays.”
Rudloff felt that Danvers’ best player “without a doubt” was a guy who never had a single carry: junior fullback Matt Nikiforov.
“Every time you saw one of their backs with the ball, you saw Nikiforov cleanly taking on one of our linebackers and putting him down,” Rudloff said. “He was a killer against us.”
Danvers 21, Marblehead 7
at Piper Field, Marblehead
Danvers (6-2);7;7;0;7;21
Marblehead (6-2);7;0;0;0;7
Scoring summary
D — Zach Fultz 2 run (Colby Medeiros kick)
M — Brayden Callahan 2 run (Finbar Bresnahan kick)
D — Nate Wise 1 run (Medeiros kick)
D — Fultz 2 run (Medeiros kick)
Individual Statistics
RUSHING: Danvers — Zach Fultz 33-165, Jack Houston 17-85, Nate Wise 5-7, Kaio Borghardt 1-5; Marblehead — Brayden Callahan 13-66, Finn Gallup 7-39.
PASSING: Danvers — Wise 0-1-0-0-0; Marblehead — Gallup 6-14-75-0-1.
RECEIVING: Danvers — None; Marblehead — Owen Coyne 2-26, Callahan 1-25, Madden Lyons 2-19, Jack Molinari 1-5.