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LAWRENCE — Central Catholic’s Trae Musumarra never dreamt the ball would be coming his way.

“I was just supposed to block on the play,” said Musumarra. “Then, there was no one there to block and I just looked up and was staring at the football. I had no idea how I got out there.”

 NORTH READING — The Hornets’ first game on their brand new $2 million FieldTurf appeared as though it could not get any uglier after two bad snaps forced punter Nick Rosano to be tackled in the end zone for safeties.

HAVERHILL — Angel Escalera rushed for 151 second-half yards and scored the clinching touchdown with less than 3 minutes remaining as Lowell defeated winless Haverhill 21-13 yesterday. Leading at intermission for only the second time this season, the Hillies (0-11) were unable to stop Escalera, who finished with 202 yards on 41 carriers. The 149-pound junior scored on runs of 9 and 34 yards to lead the Lowell (2-9) comeback. “We were one block away from doing a lot of things offensively in the first half,” Lowell coach Al Pare said. “Anyone can say what they want (about a two-win season), but I’ve got some great kids. They play as hard as they can.” Coming off a season-high 21 points in a loss to Dracut last week, Haverhill got some big plays from Connor Tufts and Blaine Joia as the Hillies went after their third victory in three years. After spotting the Red Raiders a 6-0 advantage when Shane Walsh recovered a fumble in the end zone midway through the first period, Haverhill grabbed the lead on a 65-yard pass from Tufts to Joia a minute later. Tufts threw for a team season high 176 yards — 149 of them on three completions to Joia, who set up Haverhill’s final touchdown with a beautiful one-handed catch he took 68 yards to the Lowell 2. Tito Morel ran for the touchdown on the next play to cap the game’s scoring. In between Haverhill touchdowns, Lowell used Escalera extensively. Of the Red Raiders’ 31 second-half plays, Escalera carried the ball 23 times. Lowell took the lead for good on a 15-play, 81-yard drive that consumed 7:58. On the possession, the Red Raiders faced third downs of 24 yards and 22 yards. The first time, Kyle Edwards completed a 23-yard pass to Joshua Ouellette before Escalera moved the chains with a 16-yard run. On the third-and-22 play, Thiago Silva went 12 yards on a screen pass before Edwards kept the drive alive with a 14-yard pass to Jimmy Ricoy. “With the game on the line, we didn’t get the job done,” Haverhill coach Tim Briggs said. “(Lowell) had some kids who made some plays, and we didn’t make a play. That’s what it comes down to.” Among the other Haverhill highlights were Malcolm Novello, who had 67 yards rushing, including runs of 20 and 44 yards. Senior defensive end/offensive tackle Kyle Sullivan had a team-high 12 tackles. “The first thing is I’ll be sitting down with a new athletic director to come up with a plan to get this (program) straightened out,” Briggs said. “If you take a look around, we have more things than football to worry about at Haverhill. We have some good young kids, but we need to have them stay with us. They need to stay together and work our way up.

MALDEN — Senior running back Quinn McDonough racked up 241 yards on the ground by halftime and finished with 368 yards rushing as Malden Catholic downed the Lancers 42-32 at a soggy Brother Gilbert Stadium.

DRACUT — Dracut High clearly learned from the mistakes of Turkey Day 2008. Defensive from the first snap a year ago, the Middies rocketed out of the starting blocks yesterday, attacking early and controlling the Merrimack Valley Conference Small winner-take-all clash with Methuen from start to finish, 28-14, before 4,000 fans at Beaudry Field. “Dracut’s very good, no question,” said Ranger coach Pat Graham after his team was denied the MVC Small title and the accompanying playoff berth. “We made some mistakes and had trouble moving the ball early. I don’t know what our first downs were in the first half (4). It wasn’t very good. With an offensive team like Dracut, you have to move the ball on offense.” Jared Gauthier made an amazingly athletic catch-and-return of a 6-yard Methuen punt. His 28-yard return put Dracut on the board first, 7-0. “Not our best punt, and we had a coverage breakdown,” said Graham. “It was kind of a freak thing.” Only some tough red zone defense, turning Dracut away twice, kept the Rangers within striking distance. The decisive drive came at the end of a second quarter. Buoyed by a personal foul call that set up a first-and-goal, Dracut, which is ranked No. 8 in EMass, went up 14-0 with just 25 seconds left in the half on a Matt Silva scramble. Defensively, Methuen, which is ranked 13th in EMass, showed plenty of grit. Outsized in the trenches, Rangers Pat O’Leary (5-11, 200), Mike Lussier (6-1, 200), Jason Doyle (6-1, 205) and Ryan DiZoglio (6-0, 240) disrupted things in the backfield. Meanwhile, John McCarthy and Matt Delmonte slowed down the Dracut short passing game. Dracut had averaged 39.5 points during its six-game winning streak heading into yesterday.  “Defensively, I thought we were pretty good,” said Graham, whose club allowed 327 yards. “It’s a bunch of tough, scrappy kids, and they battled.” Offensively, though, it took nearly the entire first half for the Rangers to spot a weakness. Cal Carroll’s third-down dash for seven yards was Methuen’s first down, and that came with 6:28 left in the second quarter. A later Carroll improvisation for 20 yards moved the Rangers into Dracut territory for the first time but that came as time expired. Dracut game-breaker Rakeem Shepherd, clearly recovered from an early-season ankle problem, landed the knockout shot, darting 72 yards around right end in the final seconds of the third, making it 20-0. The Rangers owned the yardage battle in the second half, outgaining Dracut 165-149, but twice Methuen turned it over in Dracut territory. “I made mistakes on offense and it took us a while to get going,” said Carroll, who nearly led Methuen to its first playoff berth since 1992. “I couldn’t have asked for any more from our defense. They just played the best they’ve played all year against the best team we’ve seen. We held our own on defense, but we just never got comfortable on offense.” The junior Carroll was a horse, lugging the football 30 times for 121 yards and a TD. He also hit on 11 of 24 passes for 115 yards with one TD and three interceptions. McCarthy, who had a 66-yard kickoff return, and Nick Wright, who bobbed and weaved for 22 yards on a punt return, provided special teams sparks in their final Ranger games. All was not well for Dracut, which is slated to play Middlesex League champ Reading in the EMass semifinals on Tuesday. Quarterback Matt Silva left the game with what looked to be a shoulder injury, the result of a bone-jarring hit from McCarthy.

LAWRENCE — Mike Yameen remembers the game and the play like it was yesterday.“Turkey Day when he was a freshman, we brought Harvey (Blanco) up for the game with Greater Lawrence. He’s out there returning a kick, lowers his shoulder, runs somebody over and bulls up the field,” Yameen recalled. “Now Harvey’s got braces. He comes to the sideline, busted helmet, blood everywhere, doesn’t say a word, grabs some water and buckles up to get back in there.

AMESBURY — Tied at 7-7, upset-minded Amesbury had Pentucket on the ropes.

It was third-and-seven on the Amesbury 49-yard line and Pentucket was stopped for a short gain.

SALEM, N.H. — When Mike Lorenz arrived at Salem High yesterday morning, he expected another day as a role player.

“I didn’t see this at all,” said Lorenz. “I expected my normal day of playing some defensive back and going in on offense a little bit.”

SALEM N.H. — New Hampshire football beware. Salem, which won the Division 1 state title yesterday over Nashua North, is only getting better.

“It’s crazy,” said Blue Devils running back Max Jacques. “We have everyone returning. We’ll be back. I have confidence.”

BEVERLY — Brooks head coach Alex Konovalchik called it “one of the most difficult ways to lose a game.”

That was an understatement.

Leading Pingree 6-0 in the New England Prep Clark-Francis Bowl, Brooks was in the process of running out the clock with 2:09 left in the game.