RallyNorth.net

Fri, Sep 15, 2017 07:00 PM @ North Reading

Team	Final
Hamilton-Wenham	28
North Reading	14

Peach's big day carries H-W past North Reading

Friday, September, 15 By Dan Harrison

NORTH READING - First half penalties plagued the North Reading football team Friday night against Hamilton-Wenham.

Self-inflicted wounds positioned the Hornets with one foot in the grave, but it was General senior captain Cam Peach who buried the opposition.

Peach scored a pair of receiving touchdowns while going over the century mark in receiving yards as H-W handed the defending Cape Ann League Kinney co-champions a 28-14 loss in their own stadium.

"Honestly, we take this one win at a time, but this means so much to us," said Peach, who erupted for 129 yards receiving on six grabs. "Two years ago they embarrassed us, 42-0 on this field, and we remembered that. We did everything in our power to not let it happen again."

With the Generals (2-0) ahead 21-6 in the fourth quarter, sophomore running back Ian Coffey hit Peach in stride on a half-back pass that went 37 yards to the end zone - icing the victory.

The Hornets (1-1) moved the ball well at times, but too many early penalties had their offense moving backwards. The visitors capitalized thanks to an excellent passing attack led by Peach and junior quarterback Billy Whelan, as well as a pair of rushing scores by Coffey.

"We just were not disciplined tonight but we put ourselves in bad positions several times," said North Reading coach Jeff Wall. "It's a credit to them, because they're a good team and you can't fall behind to them and let them get rolling and we did."

The Generals turned defense into offense to land the first scoring blow of the game.

After senior captain Phillip Durgin recovered a fumble off a botched snap, H-W was staring at a fourth and 6 when Whelan threw a strike to Peach, who confidently got both feet in bounds while securing the grab along the sideline.

Whelan started the game 6-of-7 through the air, and finished with 160 yards passing, completing most of his attempts while on the run with excellent vision down field and some terrific accuracy.

"We know Billy has two great receivers (in Peach and Jake Lanciani) and Michael Crowley made some nice catches. Ian is helluva receiver and runner," said Pugh. "Overall it was a good win, it was a physical game and I think we played very physical."

The Generals made it 14-0 midway through the second when Coffey hammered his way up the middle from a yard out on a play that was set up by a 17-yard pass from Whelan to Peach.

Coffey rumbled his way into the end zone from 5-yards out in the second half to put the visitors firmly ahead 21-6.

Defensively, the Generals did allow a pair of long touchdown passes. Overall, they hit hard and hit often against a physical Hornet club. Sam Webber had two big stuffs in the backfield, defensive ends Thomas Monahan and Hunter Wilichoski played with a nice blend of aggressiveness and smarts; Evan Bucci had a huge hit on a fourth down play late in the fourth to stop Kyle Bythrow short of the first down, effectively ending the game.

"Kids played tough. They're physical kids and they've taken a lot of pride in their defense. It was just a good win and a good win for the program," said Pugh.

North Reading's Bythrow had a 39-yard TD-strike to alex D'Ambrosio and a 29-yard pass to Jake Bedell. For H-W, Lanciani had some big catches and was 4 for 4 on extra points.