SALEM — Jason Marshall had been waiting for things to click for his young Peabody High boys lacrosse team.
In the third quarter of Friday’s road clash with host Salem, it finally came to be.
Freshman sharpshooter Logan Bryte and sophomore captain Matt Vaz each scored three goals in that decisive quarter, turning a two-goal deficit into a four-score advantage and helping life the Tanners to their first win of the season, 9-6, over the Witches at Bertram Field.
Bryte, his team’s leading scorer with 10 goals and four assists through four contests, finished the day with four goals, all coming in the second half. After two of his tallies, he took a bow. He also had a team leading nine ground balls plus three takeaways.
Vaz added an assist to go with his three scores and is up to eight goals and three assists on the season.
“It’s nice having those two guys up front we can go to for scoring,” said Marshall, whose team is now 1-3. “But we’ve got a lot of guys learning things they’ve never done before as first-time lacrosse players. For some of the other guys, it’s their first time playing high school lacrosse and getting us to the pace and speed of it at this level.
“I’ve been reminding the guys that we’ve been so close in every game, no matter the score. There were certain moments in each of them were we were close to seeing it all click for us,” he added. “It finally happened, and the boys were rewarded.”
Salem, which was going for its third win in as many days, scored all three goals in the second quarter to take a 4-2 lead into the break. But six straight tallies to open the third quarter by the Tanners — including the first five of those in rapid succession — put the hosts back on their heels, and they weren’t able to get their offensive mojo back.
“It’s a game of runs, and they had one in that third quarter,” Salem (3-2) head coach Joe Merullo stated afterwards. “They started winning some faceoffs, which they hadn’t in the first half, broke us down a bit defensively and started scoring. We switched things up (defensively) before it got out of hand, but the damage had been done.
“We tried to go on our own run in the fourth quarter and had some opportunities, but their goalie made some nice saves. We have to find a way to put the ball in the back of the net.”
Ben Wager, Peabody’s goalie who was playing just his second game and, according to Marshall, is “taking to the position very nicely”, finished with 10 saves, including some of the aforementioned big ones in the final quarter of play. His counterpart, Salem junior Vincent Milano, was busy in turning away 19 Tanner shots.
Nathan Carne added a goal and an assist for the winners while Spencer Turcotte traded in his long pole for a short stick and buried one for the Tanners near the end of the first quarter, giving his team a 2-1 lead. Kellen Quadros and Mario Ippolito both had one assist.
Senior captain Ryan Rich and junior Ethan Hartford (back after missing his team’s first three games with illness) helped power Peabody in the defensive end, as did freshman Ryan Maguire.
“We have a very young team that’s going to have its ups and downs,” acknowledged Marshall, whose team will finally get to wear their home white uniforms for the first time this spring when they host Masconomet on Monday. “We’re making strides, and this was a big turning point for us.”
Jake Lister was the top marksman for Salem with three goals and one assist. His younger brother, eighth grader Tyler Lister, added two assists.
AJ Alessi (assist), Jacob Riley and Matt Rosa also scored for the Witches, who got strong play from LSM Salvy Castiello, senior defensive middie Aaron Cook, junior Fionn Coughlin (moved to middle for his much needed muscle), and Milano between the pipes.
“You’ve got to dig deep to win games like this,” said Merullo. “Not that we didn’t, but Peabody had that little bit more.”