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Methuen trickery no treat for Dracut

Friday, September, 26 By Jeff Hamrick

DRACUT — Staring at the prospect of a fourth straight loss, the Methuen offense wasn't above a little trickery to get into the win column.

Unable to score in six of the previous seven quarters, the Rangers put together a pair of fourth-quarter scoring drives last night to upend Merrimack Valley Conference rival Dracut 14-13.

"This means a lot tonight," Methuen coach Tom Ryan said of his team's first victory since knocking off Dracut in last year's Thanksgiving Day game. "Right now it means a lot. I'm going to (congratulate) my kids because they worked so hard.
"I'm happy for my kids right now. They needed this so much. My coaching staff needed that. I know my wife needed that, but the kids needed it most."

Mike Baglieri, who quarterbacked the Rangers into Middie territory on each of their six possessions in the game, put Methuen on the board with a 3-yard run to cut Dracut's lead to six with 6:36 remaining.

Sophomore linebacker Trevor Abdallah made the second of his three sacks to force Dracut into a three-and-out on the ensuing possession and provide the Ranger offense one more opportunity.

Methuen made it work, when wide receiver/backup quarterback Kendrick Denose hurled a reverse-option pass to John Abraham, who was pulled down at the 1 after the 41-yard completion. One play later, Baglieri provided Methuen its first lead of the season since Lawrence scored with 10 seconds left in a 43-42 Week 2 victory.

"We have a lot of trick plays we run," said Ryan, who admitted they had not run that reverse pass all season. "But it's all a matter of execution. We haven't been able to execute them early on, so we're always apprehensive to run them. Kendrick threw a nice ball."

Denose made his only pass of the night pay when he broke up a fourth-down Dracut pass at the goal line with 24 seconds left — one play after Abdallah's final sack left the Middies at the 36.

The Rangers had several quality first-half opportunities, including their first two possessions which both reached the Dracut 12 before fizzling out. In fact, in the first half, Methuen maintained possession for more than 15 minutes without a score.

"It was getting extremely frustrating," Ryan said. "I know we work a lot on possessions inside the red zone and for some reason we just couldn't push it in. The fourth quarter was fun to finish things off and rewarding for our offense."

Methuen played without leading runner Brian McAndrew, who will undergo MCL surgery on the right knee he injured while rushing for 206 yards against Lawrence. Senior Jake Amodio has been impressive and finished with 149 yards on 26 carries.

"We were getting frustrated, but the O-Line stuck with it," Baglieri said. "We practiced hard all week and took it to them."