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Tulley does it!

EXETER — Pinkerton Academy’s football pulse was faint at the very best.
Exeter High needed to move the chains one more time with its meat-grinder of an offense — 10 yards — and the Astros’ season, once so promising at 6-0, would be put on ice without a trip to the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
Did they know?
“Of course they did — I told them!” said Pinkerton coach Brian O’Reilly, who took one of the few breaks once-beaten Exeter would offer on this night and piloted Pinkerton to victory, 13-12, and right into next week’s Division 1 playoffs.
“It’s hard to stop that offense. For that defense to come up with that fumble, you just don’t see that against Exeter.”
Exeter, nursing a 12-7 lead deep into the fourth, had just moved the chains for its fourth straight first-down with three minutes to go.
Just keep rolling. One more and lights out, right?
“That didn’t happen,” said Pinkerton senior linebacker James Tulley, who was everywhere in the fourth on both offense and defense to keep Pinkerton afloat.
“We never gave up on each other. All I saw was great attack by my linemen and linebackers. And once I saw that ball loose, there was no way anyone else out there was going to get it.”
Tulley pounced on the ball at the 38 with Pinkerton needing to traverse 62 yards in the final 2:56.
The son of Central Catholic and UMass linebacking legend Matt Tulley caught passes of 18 and 13 passes, plus the biggest of them all, an 8-yarder from Ryan Albrecht (10 of 15, 113 yards) on fourth and-2 to put the Astros in business, first and goal from the Exeter 6.
Tulley got his nose dirty again on the next play, springing Nico Buccieri around right end for the game-winning touchdown on a rarely-used fullback sweep with 33 seconds left.
Buccieri hadn’t touched the football till the fourth quarter, but the second-stringer proved to be the difference.
“He’s faster (than starter Mike Curley); Mike’s our inside guy, he gets the tough yards. But we just couldn’t run inside against them,” said O’Reilly. “They told me upstairs they thought the fullback toss was there. Tulley was the guy making the block, and Nico has got some speed.”
Having ousted Winnacunnet, one of the two teams to beat them in the regular season, with the win, the Astros get the opportunity to pay back the other in their playoff opener vs. Timberlane Regional, a game tentatively slated for 1 p.m. Saturday at Pinkerton.
“Two minutes to play, you’ve just got to suck it up for the last two minutes, and do all you can,” explained Tulley about his team’s reaction to nearly being eliminated. “Pinkerton needed that ball, and I’d do anything for Pinkerton.”
Pinkerton’s defense held that monotonous Exeter straight-T to just the 12 points, despite yielding 254 yards.
Along with the Tulley recovery, Kaelan Queiros denied Exeter earlier in the fourth quarter with a 10-yard strip-sack on fourth down.